The Last Hokage
by noneee
Summary: The fifth has died and Naruto has become the next Hokage. But with Sasuke now in charge of the sound village and turmoil in the rest of the world, will Naruto be able to keep the village from crumbling?
1. Prologue

Summary: The fifth has died and Naruto had become the next Hokage. But with Sasuke now in charge of the sound village and turmoil in the rest of the world, will Naruto be able to keep the village from crumbling? Take place eight years after time skip.

A/N: Hello, this is a new fic I started because I wanted to try writing some a little more epic that contained more of the characters. If I do write this entire fic, it will take a lot of time and effort so I'd appreciate reviews if you want me to continue. This first chapter is more of a prologue chapter reintroducing you to all the characters and the current situation.

So please, read and review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

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**The Last Hokage**

Prologue**  
**

"She's dead," Sakura said solemnly, standing over the cold body of the 5th Hokage. Tears fell down her face as she called the time of death of her mentor, her leader and her friend.

The room was filled with people now, all worried about their benevolent leader. Most were crying, seeing the old ladies cold body lying motionless in her bed. A group of medics worked to cover her body and prepare it to be moved. Sakura wiped tears from eyes as she fell into a chair off to the side of the Hokage's bed, completely exhausted from hours of trying to save the old ladies life.

While it was not something that was totally unexpected, the death of the Hokage would still hit everyone in the village hard. The old women had been having medical problems for much of the last year. She had been Hokage for more then 10 years now, and the combination of stress, exhaustion and injuries she had obtained over the years had finally caught up with her. While her physical appearance still seemed young, she had truly grown old.

As the 5th's body was removed from the room, everyone stayed quite in respect for their leader. This would truly be a sorrowful day.

xx

A great deal of time had passed since the rookie nine had all become Genin. In their first year that had all lived through the chuunin exams, although only one actually became one, an attack on their village by the sand and sound which had lead to the death of the third and the appointment of the fifth, and loads of training and missions. There numbers were reduced by one when Sasuke left the village, seeking power for his revenge. And again was reduced when Naruto left for two and a half years to train with one of the legendary sanin, Jiraya.

During his absence the seven that remained in the village all became chuunin, all becoming much stronger. Upon the return of Naruto, a new enemy threatened the village, the evil organization, Akatsuki. The Akatsuki, wanting the demon contained in Naruto and the rest of the tailed Bijuu, planned on using the demons power to throw the world in havoc in order to gain power for themselves. Many battles occurred between the Akatsuki and the Shinobi of the leaf, leaving many leaf ninja dead as well as destroying much of the Akatsuki's organization.

Sasuke, having left Konoha to go to Orochimaru to gain the power necessary to kill his brother, Itachi, the one who had killed the entire Uchiha clan before defecting to Akatsuki, was also busy in these years. Quickly gaining power from Orochimaru's forbidden techniques, Sasuke quickly surpassed his teacher, but still did not have the strength to get his revenge. Orochimaru, using the opportunity to gain the power of the sharingan, attempted to steal the body of Sasuke so together they would have the power necessary to kill Itachi.

But Sasuke, with his sharingan and superior power, reversed Orochimaru's jutsu at the last moment, stealing Orochimaru's strength. Now having enough power, Sasuke exacted his revenge on Itachi, killing him in cold blood. Shortly after Itachi's demise, the rest of Akatsuki fell and the organization was no more.

With his brother dead and his life goal complete, Sasuke was still not satisfied. Having stolen all of Orochimaru's strength, Sasuke was now in control of the quickly growing nation of the sound. Still containing Orochimaru's ambition to destroy Konoha, Sasuke decided to restore his clan in the village of the sound, making his new village stronger so that one day it may be the strongest in the world.

Many years passed now, everyone in the rookie nine becoming stronger and progressing. Slowly, they all became Jounin, the highest rank for a soldier. Many small skirmishes occurred between the constantly warring nations, but no major threat like Akatsuki appeared.

Now, with all the not so rookie 9 now strong Jounins in there 20's, the fifth has died. With pressure from the sound and the other nations of the world, it is now time for the strongest of Konoha to prove their worth, and keep their village the great specimen it had become throughout the generations.

xx

"So is it decided?"

The room was silent, all the occupants deep in deliberation. The small circular room was lit by only a few candles and lanterns that lined the outside. In the middle of the room sat a wooden circular table, surrounded by thirteen leather high back chairs. Each chair was occupied by one of the elder members of Konoha, some of the oldest and wisest in the village. This was the council.

Right now they were deliberating one of the most important decisions that they ever had to make; who would be the next Hokage of the village. It had only been a couple of days since the fifths death, but even though they all still mourned the old leaders passing, they couldn't waste any time in assigning a new leader.

Currently there were many worthy candidates to fill in the position, but each had fallen through in one way or another. Jiraya, who the council had wanted to be the fifth Hokage as well, had again turned down the offer, not prepared to take on such a responsibility. Kakashi, who was one of the strongest Jounin's, had also turned down the offer. Shikamaru had been another of their top choices, being one of the most intelligent in the village and well as one of the wisest. He too had refused the job, saying being Hokage would be too troublesome. Sakura, an obvious candidate because of her close association with the fifth had declined as well. She wanted to concentrate all her efforts on medicine and the work of Hokage would leave her little time to advance her medical skills further. So now they were down to their last option…

"So Uzumaki Naruto will be the next Hokage," a female member stated. Everyone in the room nodded in agreement. While many of the council members still deemed Naruto too immature to take on such an important position, there was no doubt that he had many of a Hokage's most important characteristics. More then anyone else in the village he loved Konoha, and he was the most passionate about protecting its people. He was also almost undisputedly the strongest ninja currently in the village. Through his training through the years with Jiraya and Kakashi he had mastered many techniques and had surpassed almost everyone else, even all of the previous Hokage's.

On top of all his qualities there was always the fact that he was the one that the fifth had wanted to succeed her. While she too thought many times he would be too immature to take on the duties and he was young but she knew that this was what he wanted more then anything and he would put everything he had into protecting the village's people.

xx

Dark clouds hung low in the sky, a thin mist covering the land. Today was a dreary day. It had been two days since the fifths passing and today was her funeral. Konoha had shut down for the funeral, every member of the village currently attending the service. A sea of people dressed in all black stood in front of the newly created tombstone and grand casket at the foot of mount Hokage.

The service was a touching one, starting with the ones closest to the late Hokage saying a few words, followed by each member of the village placing a single white rose on the fifths casket.

When it was Naruto's turn to place his rose on the casket, he tried his best not to cry, but in the end he couldn't help but let a few tears slide down his face. He remembered all the times he had spent with the Hokage. He remembered to first time he had met her more then 10 years ago when he had convinced her to become the Hokage. He remembered all the times she had helped him and talked to him about missions. All the times recently when they had gone drinking after a hard days work. He just couldn't believe she was gone.

After placing his rose on the casket Naruto walked off to the side, congregating with all the other members of the village. He stood there for a while, deep in his own thoughts. He was interrupted though, by a strange person suddenly appearing before him.

"Uzumaki Naurto, the council requests your presence," the stranger said, turning to leave, beckoning for Naruto to follow.

xx

"A-are you serious?" Naruto asked, barely above a whisper.

Every person in the room nodded, waiting for the young mans response.

Naruto was so shocked that he couldn't even speak; he stood there in front of the council, baffled.

"So then, Mr. Uzumaki, do you accept?" an elder male member asked.

"Of course!" Naruto yelled, snapping out of his initial phase of shock. Some of the council members rubbed their ears now, the shear volume of the blonds response almost blowing out their eardrums.

"Okay then. We, as the council of Konoha, declare you, Uzumaki Naruto, the sixth Hokage."

xx

Even though the restaurant was packed, it still remained deathly quite. Six of the rookie nine sat in a row at the bar, drinking sake and sitting in an awkward silence. Currently, all of team seven was absent; Sasuke for obvious reasons, Sakura had excused herself to go to the hospital and Naruto had mysteriously disappeared during the funeral.

Even though this was the first time they had all been together in a long time, as they were all Jounins and were constantly in missions, there was very little reason to celebrate the occasion. They had all been called back from their missions they were on for the funeral, and most likely they would have to resume them within the next couple days.

"Well this sucks," Kiba groaned, downing another shot. Akamaru whined in agreement at Kiba's feet. Normally Akamaru wouldn't be allowed in the restaurant but the owner had made an exception given the circumstances.

"Thank you captain obvious," Ino said sarcastically, turning to Kiba who had been sitting on her right. Shikamaru groaned from the left of Ino, he knew where this was going to go.

"No need to be such a bitch," Kiba retorted, "Just trying to make things a little less awkward."

"Well, like always, you failed," Ino barked.

Hinata, not being able to take the increased tension on top of everything she was already feeling, started sobbing lightly.

"See what you did, Ino," Kiba muttered bitterly, turning to Hinata who was sitting on his right and putting his arm around her, comforting his troubled friend.

Another long awkward silence ensued, the only sound being Hinata's occasional sob and Kiba's comforting remarks. The silence was only ended when Sakura came barging into the restaurant, completely out of breath.

"You guys, you won't believe what just happened," she huffed out in between ragged breaths.

Everyone turned, their interest peeked.

"N-Naruto was just named the next Hokage."

xx

"I can't believe that brat got named Hokage," Kiba muttered to his teammates. They had finished their get together at the restaurant and were now walking, and wobbling, slowly though the dimly lit streets of the town.

"You shouldn't be calling a 23 year old man, let alone the Hokage, a brat," Shino reprimanded.

"Shino is right, you should respect Naruto, he had to put in a lot of hard to work to become Hokage," Hinata added.

The whole team had changed greatly in the years since they were 15. Kiba was much taller now and very well built. He still sported the same maroon triangle tribal tattoos on his face as well as the sharp fangs, messy brown hair and leaf forehead protector proudly on his head. Now, instead of his old grey jacket or black get up, he wore a green jounin flak jacket with a black shirt underneath and black pants. Akamaru had not gotten much bigger since he had turned six. He looked older, though. His fur was now greyer and his nose was wearing out slightly.

Hinata had also changed drastically. She as well had grown taller and had filled in nicely. She wore her jounin vest over a light purple dress with her forehead protector still around her neck. Her long black hair hung loosely over her shoulders and her white eyes shown as brilliantly as ever.

Shino had changed the least out of all of them. Besides obviously growing taller and stronger he still sported his normal sunglasses, even now at night. He now wore a large green coat, similar to the one he had worn when he had first graduated from the academy. The most drastic change for Shino came with his hair. He had shaven his strange black afro type thing and now had only a small millimeter thick layer of black hair on his head.

"Well even if he is Hokage I'll still always think of Naruto as that little punk that always tried to pull pranks to get attention when we were in the academy," Kiba continued.

"Are you jealous Kiba?" Shino questioned.

"Nah," Kiba replied. "Sure it would be great being the strongest and most respected Shinobi in the village, but in a way I sort of pity him. He's gonna be stuck inside doing work all the time now. I wouldn't be able to stand that! I need to get out and explore! I bet Naruto still thinks all the Hokage does is sit around drinking Sake while everyone does their bidding and worships them."

"Definitely jealous," Shino concluded, crossing his arms and nodding his head for effect.

Hinata giggled as Kiba's face went red as he growled at Shino.

"I'm sure Naruto will do a great job," Hinata added, blushing as she thought of the one she had always had a crush on.

xx

"Hey Shikamaru, aren't you at least a little surprised that they made Naruto Hokage instead of you?" Ino asked as she walked through the dimly lit streets with her two teammates.

"Not really," Shikamaru responded, "The fifth had approached me several times before she died asking me if I would like to succeed her, but I always said no. It would be too troublesome to be Hokage."

"That's so like you, Shikamaru," Chouji said, laughing deeply. "I bet Naruto will be able to get all the ramen he wants now that he's Hokage though…"

Like team eight, team ten had also changed greatly in the past years. Shikamaru had changed the least. He now wore his jounin vest instead of his chuunin one, and he wore a short sleeve black shirt under it. He still had his black hair tied back in a single spike and he still seemed to be half asleep at all times. The only noticeable difference with Shikamaru was he now had a long, deep scar near his right ear.

Chouji, more then anyone else, had gotten _much_ bigger. He now towered over just about everyone else in the town. He had also gained much more girth (calling it fat would still result in a few broken bones as well) and he had broken his fair share of chairs. He now wore more of a samurai outfit then a ninja one, a thick piece of armor on his chest with a dark red shirt underneath.

Ino was arguably one of the more attractive female ninja in the village, and she wasn't afraid to show everyone that. She wore a very skimpy outfit, a small tube top and _very_ short shorts. Her long blond hair hung well below her shoulders, it was obvious from its highly shiny appearance that she could very well spend more time attending to it then training. Sex could be a weapon too.

xx

Naruto stood on the roof of his apartment building, looking down the sleeping village below, his village. A wide smile spread across Naruto's face as the Hokage's robes on his back blew freely in the wind. While Naruto felt a little guilty for being so elated so soon after the previous Hokage's death, he couldn't stop himself from being happy right now.

Naruto turned his head to look behind him, at Mount Hokage. He looked over the five faces on the mountain and felt his smile get wider as he imagined his face carved up there with the rest of them.

Naruto had been through a lot throughout his life, and his body showed that. He still had the same wild blonde hair, vibrant blue eyes and thin whiskers but other then that he was much different. His whole body, particularly his arms sported many, many scars from his years of battle. Being a wind user, he had obtained more scars then average on his arms, the sharp wind chakra often cutting him deep if he lost control of it even for just a second. He was well built now, and under his new Hokage robe he still wore his jounin vest with a black long sleeve shirt under with orange patches on the shoulders.

"So it looks like your dream finally came true, eh, Naruto?"

"Kakashi!" Naruto yelled excitedly, his former instructor having appeared behind him on the roof. "Sakura! Jiraya!" Naruto added, as his pink haired teammate and other mentor appeared as well.

"Congratulations Naruto," They both said in unison. Naruto smiled even wider still, as if that was possible, beaming at his friends.

"Thanks, but it was only a matter of time before this happened, right?" Naruto said, almost immediately regretting his choice of words.

None of the others got mad though, they knew what he meant and they knew he would never disrespect the late fifth.

Jiraya grinned weakly as he looked up to the mountain, to the face of his late teammate. He was now the last remaining sannin, which surprised him, seeing as he was the one that usually made the brashest decisions.

"Well, you've got a lot to live up to Naruto," Jiraya said, still looking at the stern visage of the fifth.

Naruto turned back to the mountains as well, looking at all the faces engraved on it. The first and second, who he had never known. The third, who had been one of the only too believe in him when he was young and everyone else in the village feared him. The fourth--who had given him the cursed Kyubi, and who had been his greatest rival during his training: even if he was no longer alive. And of course the fifth—who was responsible for putting Naruto where he was now and who had brought the village to the flourishing state it was in now.

"Don't worry," Naruto whispered to the faces and to his friends, "I'll be the best Hokage yet."

xx

"Sir, we have an update on the situation in Konoha," a scout said, trying not to tremble in fear in front of his leader.

"What…" a cold void responded.

"Well as you know the fifth has perished," the scout replied, "We have gotten word that one Uzumaki Naruto has become the Hokage of the village."

There was no response to this. The scout shook in fear, worried what might happen if this happened to be bad news for his leader.

"This is interesting indeed," a voice replied from next to the tyrant leader. The man laughed, pushing his glasses up his nose. "You have quite a history with him, if I remember right, Sasuke-sama."

"It doesn't matter," Sasuke replied coldly, the dark red of the sharingan in his eyes making the scout flee in fear, "Whether he is the Hokage or a puny frog is, Konoha will still fall."

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Review! Tell me what you think! I won't continue this if no one reviews and tells me to! 

The main characters I'm most likely going to base the story around are Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Kiba, Hinata, Shikamaru, Ino and most likely Shino and Chouji but not as much so. I'm not really a huge fan of Gai's team and I don't like writing any of their characters so most likely they won't be included unless you guys really want them to be.


	2. A Slow Start

Next chapter! Thanks to everyone that reviewed the first one! More reviews would be awesome though, so review! Tell me what you think.

Sorry if this chapter is a little confusing, its sort of meant to be as it is still setting up the plot and sub plots.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

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Chapter 1: A Slow Start 

"Guhh," Naruto groaned as he collapsed onto the giant mound of papers on his desk. "Who would have thought being Hokage would require so much boring work."

"Well what did you expect?" Sakura yelled back at him, "You're responsible for running the village now! Did you think you just get to strut around town all day bragging to everyone?"

Shizune, who was standing next to Sakura adjacent to the Hokage's desk, nodded in agreement. She had agreed to aid Naruto in his work, as she had been the fifths aid and she knew Naruto would need _a lot_ of help. So far, he was even more reluctant to do any paper work then the fifth was: something she didn't even think possible.

"But I've been doing paperwork all day!" Naruto barked back. "When do I get to go out and do the best missions and protect the village and stuff like that?"

"If you have to go out and protect the village, that means something is threatening the village," Sakura growled back, "Do you really want that?"

"Humph," Naruto said as he fell back into his chair, crossing his arms, refusing to sign another piece of paper. "I still don't want to sign papers."

"Naruto…" Sakura muttered. Even if Naruto was now 23, he still acted like he was 13. It had only been a few days since Naruto had become Hokage and he was already throwing tantrums because he didn't want to do any work. Honestly, what did he think the Hokage did?

"Tell you what, Naruto," Sakura said, a wicked grin coming across her face, "If you finish your work early today, maybe I'll take you out for a date after and you never know…"

"Really?" Naruto asked excitedly, jumping forward in his chair. They had known each other for more then ten years and Sakura had still never accepted a date with him. Maybe being Hokage wouldn't be so bad after all.

Sakura pretended to think for a second before yelling, "No! Now get back to work!"

xx

Shikamaru yawned, feeling his eyes get heavy as he started to drift off. The clouds were so nice today…

Even though Shikamaru was an adult now, he still like to come to his favorite place and just stare up at the clouds all day; although with his increased amount of responsibility it wasn't something he could do often. Being a Jounin, especially one everyone always expected to execute every mission flawlessly because of that pesky two hundred plus IQ, was stressful. Any free moment he got he tried to spend it recomposing himself, starring up at the clouds, envying them for how free they were.

Things had been pretty slow for the last couple of days though. He hadn't had any missions since the Hokage's death, most likely because that idiot Naruto was now Hokage and he most likely was neck deep in piled up paperwork and missions he still hadn't assigned.

Shikamaru was glad that he got a break, he never got a break. Normally it seemed as if he couldn't go a day without being sent on some A rank mission, almost always as the leader. He had to be the most overworked Shinobi in Konoha.

Shikamaru took one last big yawn as he finally drifted off…

"Shikamaru, wake up!"

Shikamaru groaned, rubbing his head. Well that peace didn't last very long. He slowly opened his eyes, looking up at the intruder.

"The Hokage summoned you," Ino remarked, her hands on her hips looking annoyed. "I swear--if it wasn't for me you probably would just sleep here forever."

"So do we have another mission or something?" Shikamaru muttered, reluctantly getting up from his favorite spot.

"Not quite."

xx

"Please, Shikamaru, will you please do it?" Naruto pouted from behind his desk, to Shikamaru, whose head was only visible over the giant mound of papers that had accumulated.

"This is so troublesome," Shikamaru groaned, rubbing his head.

"Come on!" Naruto pestered, "I can't think of anyone else to do something like this."

"So, let me get this straight, you want me to be your leading war and tactical advisor?" Shikamaru asked.

Naruto nodded his head furiously, "Yup."

"Troublesome…" Shikamaru muttered.

"Please! You were pretty much born to do this." Naruto continued.

"But aren't most of the advisors usually old people who have a lot of battle experience?" Shikamaru asked, trying to think how he could get out of this. He really didn't want this much responsibility.

"Well, you have plenty of battle experience and you're smarter then anyone else here," Naruto argued. "Plus, you act older then anyone else here."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment…?"

"Will you please do it?" Naruto asked for the final time. He couldn't force Shikamaru to do this, but he knew that it was the perfect job for Shikamaru.

"Fine…" Shikamaru grumbled. He wasn't too fond of the idea of taking on such an important position, but on the plus side, he wouldn't have to go on as many missions anymore.

"Great!" Naruto yelled in excitement, grinning widely, "I knew you'd come to your senses."

"Troublesome…"

xx

"Come on Akamaru, hurry up!" Kiba yelled out to his dog, "You're getting slower!" The two were returning through the woods, coming back from a mission on the outskirts of the fire country.

Akamaru growled, maybe if Kiba hadn't been riding on his back half the day he wouldn't be so tired and could go a little faster. Didn't Kiba realize he was getting a little to big to still ride on his back? He wasn't a horse, after all!

Kiba slowed down, letting his dog catch up after hearing his friend's last remark. "Hey, if you don't want me to ride on your back anymore you could just ask." Kiba stated as Akamaru finally caught up.

Akamaru growled again, more ferociously this time. He had asked numerous times for Kiba to just walk on his own! But Kiba never listened!

"Heh, well I guess you have asked," Kiba laughed, "but it's so fun!"

Akamaru growled yet again, this time biting him lightly on his hand as well.

"Fine, fine, you don't have to carry me anymore," Kiba conceded, "but you have to keep up with me!" Kiba took off, even faster then before. Akamaru groaned and picked up his pace as well, trying to keep up with his master's maddening speed.

xx

Hinata walked slowly through the streets of Konoha, enjoying the warm evening. Both her teammates had gone on short solo missions for the day so she had been left all alone to train by herself. While it had been a lonely day, she was content with being by herself for a while. She had needed some time by herself to think over everything that had happened in the past week.

Things had been slow for the past few days. She hadn't had any missions and since Kiba and Shino seemed to always be on there own missions she didn't have anyone to train with either. Although she was glad for the down time, in a way she was jealous that Kiba and Shino got to go on their own missions. Even though she had tried to prove how strong she was to Naruto many times, she still wondered if he thought of her as some fragile flower that should be protected. But to be fair to Naruto, he hadn't sent many of the other Jounin's on missions either. It had only been Kiba, Shino and a couple other that had been sent on anything recently, and their missions were just delivering something to some of the villages in fire country, something they were best suited for because of their higher knowledge land.

But Hinata still hoped that Naruto would let her prove herself to him. Naruto had succeeded in making everyone in the village acknowledge him; he had even reached his lifetime goal at only 23. Now it was Hinata's goal to get Naruto to acknowledge her. Even though she had a crush on Naruto for more then ten years she had never been able to express her true feelings to him.

That was the real reason she was out in the village now. Naruto. She doubted she would be able to work up the courage to tell him how she felt now, but she wanted to at least congratulate him on becoming Hokage. She hadn't seen Naruto since he received the title and she really wanted to tell him how great it was that he had finally realized his dream.

So Hinata lingered around the town, stopping by the ramen stand from time to time, hoping to catch a glimpse of the blond haired man. So far she had had no luck. Most likely Naruto was just stuck in his office doing all the work he had to do. She wish she could go and visit him there, but it wasn't considered right to go to the Hokage's office without being summoned, especially when you knew they had a huge backlog of work.

"Hey, Hinata!"

Hinata startled at the sudden mention of her name. She had been so caught up in her own thoughts she had lost awareness of her surroundings.

"Oh, hi Kiba, Akamaru." Hinata greeted to her two friends, who had appeared next to her when she hadn't been paying attention. They both looked pretty ragged; they probably had just gotten back from a mission and hadn't even washed up yet.

"So we both just got back from a mission and we're pretty hungry, want to get something to eat?" Kiba asked, as he put his arm around Hinata's shoulder.

"S-sure," Hinata stammered, still in mild shock from her teammate's sudden appearance. She still wanted to find Naruto, although it wasn't looking likely that she would find him tonight. She wouldn't give up though. "Mind if we get ramen?"

"Sure thing," Kiba replied, grinning widely, fangs showing.

Hinata smiled weakly as the three of them headed off towards Ichiraku's, Kiba's arm still around her shoulders.

xx

Gaara sat behind his desk, a smile, or as close to a smile as Gaara could muster on his face. He held in his hand a short letter he had just received from Konoha informing him of the recent events that had occurred in the village. While the news of their fifths passing was tragic, that was not what he was smiling about. The news that his friend, Naruto, the one who had saved him in more ways then one, had become Hokage was what brought a smile to his face.

He knew how hard Naruto had worked to reach this point, and he was glad that his friend had been able to reach his goal; even it was something Garra himself had achieved more then eight years ago.

Garra had changed drastically since he had become Kazekage. When Shukaku had been removed from him, he been able to sleep again and he no longer had bags under his eyes constantly from a lack of sleep. To go along with his increased amount of sleep was an improved mood. He no longer was tormented by the demon within him and was less prone to violent outbreaks. He was now much more pleasant to be around and he wore the symbol for 'love' on his forehead for a new reason.

Garra looked up from the letter as his siblings, Kankuro and Temari, entered into the room.

"What's the news from Konoha?" Kankuro asked, noticing the letter in his brothers hand with the distinct leaf symbol on it.

"Their Hokage has died," Garra responded bluntly.

"When did this happen?" Temari asked with a shocked look on her face.

"Only a couple of days ago," Garra responded. "They have already appointed a new Hokage."

"Who?" Kankuro and Temari asked in unison.

"Uzumaki Naruto."

Both Temari's and Kankuro's mouth were agape, shocked by this news.

"Are you kidding?" Temari questioned. "That brat became the Hokage?"

"He's got to be to be the most immature person in that village," Kankuro added.

"I am not kidding. And he is not a brat, he is strong and he will serve the village well," Garra responded bitterly, not pleased with his siblings disrespectful reactions.

Seeing an opening, Temari acted. "Well, since they have a new Hokage maybe it would be best if we sent an ambassador to congratulate them, maybe me?"

"You're always so willing to go to Konoha aren't you?" Kankuro scoffed, knowing full well the real reason she wanted to go.

"Maybe that would be best," Garra responded, completely oblivious to Temari's true intentions. "You will go as ambassador to congratulate the new Hokage and give our condolences for the passing of the old one, as well as renewing our treaty will Konoha with the new Hokage's signature."

Temari grinned, knowing her plan worked. "Yes, Kazekage-sama."

Kankuro just rolled his eyes and started to leave. "You're lucky Garra is so socially clueless."

Temari moved to leave as well, "Or maybe he just doesn't care. I'm actually offering to do something useful unlike you who's just gonna go play with his puppets all day."

"Whatever," Kankuro muttered as he parted ways with his siblings, heading back to his apartment.

Garra watched his siblings leaved and then looked back to the letter. While he was glad that Naruto had succeeded in his dream he hoped the hyperactive ninja knew what he was getting into. Being a Kage wasn't easy, and any mistakes that the Hokage made could lead to tragic results as well as causing trouble for the sand as well, as the two villages were still allied.

"Best of luck, Naruto," Garra whispered, starring off into the distance towards Konoha.

xx

The moon shone brightly over the town, casting an eerie glow over the bare streets and empty shops. Shino walked slowly through the town, enjoying the emptiness. Bugs buzzed quietly in his body, tired from the days work. He had arrived back late from his mission and was heading towards the Hokage's office to hand in the mission.

It was late and most likely the Hokage would be gone for the night, but Shino could still leave proof he had completed the mission for the Hokage to check in the morning. As Shino approached the Hokage tower he was surprised to find that some of the lights were still on.

What surprised Shino even more was that when he entered the Hokage's office he found Naruto still there, working.

"Hokage-sama, don't you think you should be sleeping now? It's late," Shino asked. He found it a little odd being so formal with someone he'd always known as a hyperactive little brat, but he wasn't one to question authority and he would respect his superiors.

"Yeah, I probably should," Naruto responded yawning, "I could have gotten to sleep hours ago but I was goofing off earlier and Sakura said I couldn't leave until I finished the work for today."

"I finished my mission, I just came to drop off the papers," Shino continued, holding out the paperwork for the mission he had just completed.

"Oh, well, good job," Naruto mumbled, he was exhausted. "Just put it on top of the pile." Naruto motioned to the giant stack of papers on his desk.

Shino complied, putting his paper precariously on the top, hoping the massive stack wouldn't tip over. He then bowed and turned to leave.

"Oh and um Shino, there's one more thing I want to ask you," Naruto said, signaling for Shino to stay. "I probably could have waited till tomorrow but since you're here anyway I might as well ask."

"Yes?" Shino asked curiously.

"Well, I have this mission for you guys. You Kiba and Hinata I mean. It's normally something that ANBU would probably do but I wanted someone I trusted to do it instead." Naruto said, looking down at the piece of paper he had been examining before.

Shino looked at it as well and immediately frowned as he saw what it was. "Sir, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but he is our enemy now, pursuing it farther would be dangerous."

"Yeah I know, it's just I want to try one last thing. Don't worry though, it won't be anything too dangerous," Naruto responded, smiling weakly. He wasn't ready to give up yet, even after all these years. "So could you bring Hinata and Kiba here tomorrow morning? I can give you the mission then."

Shino nodded. He knew he wouldn't agree with whatever mission he was being sent on, but if it would help the Hokage gain some peace, he would do it willingly. He bowed again and left the office, heading back to his house for the night.

Naruto sat in his chair, watching Shino leave the room. He reclined back in his chair, swiveling back and forth nervously. He knew the council wouldn't approve off this mission but he wanted to do it anyway.

Naruto looked back down at the paper, maps and pictures on his desk looking them over for the hundredth time that night.

"Sasuke…" Naruto whispered, looking at the latest picture the ANBU had gotten of his long lost friend.

Looking up from the pictures, Naruto yawned loudly; he couldn't stay awake much longer. Giving up on the paper work for the night, Naruto got up and headed for the Hokage's chambers. He didn't care if Sakura was mad at him in the morning, he just needed some rest.

Ten minutes later Naruto lied in bed, still awake. He was completely exhausted yet he couldn't seem to get himself to fall asleep. He groaned, rolling over trying to get more comfortable, starring out the window at the crescent moon.

_It's all your fault boy…_

Naruto eyes shot open, pulse racing.

"Damnit, I don't need this now," Naruto growled as he reached over to the nightstand grabbing the medicine Sakura had given him if something like this ever happened. He popped two of the pills in his mouth and rolled over again, waiting for the pills to take affect. Slowly they did, and Naruto felt his heart rate slow down and his eyes get heavy as he slowly drifted off to sleep.

xx

In a village to the north of Konoha…

The night was quite and a tired man entered his humble home after a hard days work. He was the doctor of the town and had spent all day trying to save the life of any elderly women who had come down with a mysterious fever, but in the end couldn't help her.

So now exhausted and anguished by the old women he couldn't save, the doctor went straight to his room and collapsed on his bed without even changing out of his dirty and bloodstained cloths. He took a few deep breathes trying to calm himself and then quickly drifted off to some much needed sleep.

His peace didn't last long as soon after he drifted off several people came crashing through his door…

"Doctor! Please you have to come quick!" One of the men frantically yelled.

The doctor groggily got out of his bed, disoriented by the sudden intruders.

"What is it?"

"Please come quick, the Feudal Lord has fallen badly ill!"

The doctor followed the small group of men as they lead him to the lord's manor. They quickly lead him to the leader's room to where the older man was lying, moaning in pain. The doctor quickly rushed to his side, starting a quick examination.

"Sir, he started complaining last night of a small fever but we didn't think it was anything," one of the men quickly stated, "But then tonight he started crying out and pain and when we came in his fever had gotten worse and he had these strange rashes on his body."

The doctor hurriedly examined the man and swore to himself when he saw the rashes. This was the same thing that had killed the elderly women he had been working on earlier. How had the Feudal lord managed to come down with this same illness? What the hell was going on?

xx

"So did they agree to follow my orders?" Sasuke asked a trembling scout.

The scout nodded. "They have already started to execute your plan, sir."

"Good, you may leave now," Sasuke said, content that he wouldn't have to force the other village to do his bidding.

The scout left, leaving Sasuke alone in the vast chamber with only Kabuto by his side.

"Kabuto, I'm leaving for a couple days," Sasuke informed his right hand man nonchalantly. "While I'm gone, you will be in charge. And if you try anything again, Kabuto, I won't hesitate to kill you—remember that."

"Yes sir," Kabuto responded obediently, "But if you don't mind me asking, what is it you are going to do?"

"It's none of you're business right now," Sasuke replied, "If I find what I'm looking for though, you will find out soon enough."

* * *

Review! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to ask or suggest. 

Most chapters will most likely be a little longer and may take a day or two more to write, but I'm pretty good about updating (although I won't if I don't get some review :O).

Oh, and there is one thing I would like to mention about any side OC's I may include in this. I don't know Japanese so I don't know any Japanese names really besides the ones I've heard in anime, so if I have any OC's I usually just keep their name to something like 'the doctor' or refer to them as how they are important to the story. If I _really _have to name an OC I'll prob just steal a name from a small character from the fillers so it doesn't sound completely out of place.


	3. Missions

Here's the next chapter. Review please! Reviews make me happy and make me want to write more, so review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

* * *

Chapter 2: Missions 

"Uhh, what the hell is that noise?" Kiba mumbled groggily.

Another loud knock sounded. Someone was knocking on the door.

With great difficulty, Kiba rolled out of bed. Rubbing his head, trying to sooth the mild hangover he had, Kiba made his way out of his bedroom and towards the door.

Several more loud knocks sounded, with even greater intensity then before.

"Hold on a second," Kiba growled as he opened the door.

"We have a mission," Shino stated before the door had even fully opened.

"Good morning to you too." Kiba grumbled, opening the door all the way letting his teammate in.

Shino took a few steps into the small house, clearly not planning on staying long.

Noticing Kiba's sluggish movements and constant rubbing of his head, Shino came to the obvious conclusion. "You've been drinking. You shouldn't drink when we may have a mission."

"I had a few drinks last night, its fine," Kiba replied. He hated how Shino always reprimanded him when he had a few drinks. It wasn't a big deal. He could just take a few aspirin and he'd be fine, he never drank too much in case he had a mission, only enough to give him a mild headache the next day.

"Get packed for the mission. Bring enough supplies to last you at least a couple weeks," Shino ordered, getting ready to leave. "I'm going to retrieve Hinata now, meet us at the Hokage tower." Shino went to leave but Kiba stopped him.

"Don't bother going to retrieve Hinata she's here," Kiba informed his teammate. He knew Shino wouldn't approve of this but it didn't matter what he thought.

"You didn't…"

"Don't worry, it's nothing like that," Kiba responded, knowing exactly what Shino meant. He walked to the corner of the kitchen and filled up Akamaru's bowl with food for the giant dog that had been patiently waiting for his breakfast since Kiba had woken up. "Hinata and I were just out late last night and I offered for her to stay in my guest room since my house was closer."

"Good. Well wake her up and round up her equipment and meet me at the Hokage's office," Shino ordered as he walked out the door. "I'm leaving now."

Kiba waved goodbye to his teammate and then walked over to the door of his guest bedroom. He had moved out of his parent's house several years ago and now owned a small house on the edge of Inuzuka territory. The house wasn't much, only two bedrooms and a small kitchen, but it was enough, especially seeing as Kiba lived alone and preferred to spend as little time inside as possible.

Kiba knocked lightly on the door of the bedroom, knowing that Hinata would be up already. "We've got a mission, Hinata." Kiba said quietly to the women through the door. "Shino says to pack for several weeks so it's probably going to be a long mission."

Hinata was in fact awake and was already out of bed and dressed. She always felt kind of awkward sleeping in someone else's house like this, especially a guy's house. Luckily, Kiba never made it awkward for her though, and slowly she had grown more comfortable staying over whenever he invited her to.

"Okay," Hinata acknowledged as she opened the door and stepped into the small kitchen connected to both of the rooms. "I'll just go get packed then."

Kiba smiled brightly as Hinata exited her room. He liked it when she stayed over, even if she slept in a different room. "Good morning Hinata." Kiba greeted.

"Good morning Kiba," Hinata greeted in response. "Well I'm going to leave now; I'll see you at the Hokage's office."

"Okay," Kiba was a little disappointed that Hinata was going to leave so quickly, even though he knew that she had to unless they wanted Shino yelling at them for being late. "You can stay and have breakfast if you want, I'm just going to get packed and take Akamaru on a quick run before I leave."

"No, that's fine, I better get home and get packed," Hinata responded apologetically, knowing this would hurt Kiba a little. Hinata walked for the door now, waving goodbye to Akamaru who had looked up from his breakfast to watch Hinata go.

"Oh, well then I'll see you at the Hokage's office," Kiba said disappointedly.

Hinata nodded as she exited the small house, shutting the door behind her. She started to make her way to her house at a fast walk. She only lived about 10 minutes from Kiba's house on foot if you walked slowly, not far at all. She knew Kiba knew that it really wasn't too much further to her house from town, but she would always stay with him if he asked; she knew it made him happy.

As Hinata got closer to her house she started thinking of the upcoming mission. If it was going to be a longer mission it most likely would be a more important one. Even though she didn't even know what the mission was yet, Hinata started to do some mental preparation. She breathed deeply, controlling her chakra as she went over possible combat situations in her head. It had been a technique Kurenai had taught her after one many screw ups Hinata had had on a mission when she was younger, and it seemed to work so she continued to do it.

And she had to do well on this mission. Not only because it was important to do well on every mission or so that she wouldn't be a burden on her teammates; but because this was the first big mission with _him _as Hokage. Naruto would know everything that happened on this mission, he would be watching. This could finally be her chance to prove to him how strong she had become. She could finally have Naruto acknowledge her.

xx

Naruto sat at his desk, rubbing his still sleepy eyes. He had barely gotten any sleep last night but he couldn't afford to sleep until noon, even if he wanted to. The whole village was counting on him now, he couldn't waste time sleeping.

So Naruto furiously stamped, signed and filled out every document currently on his desk. Even though he had been working like crazy for almost an hour now, it didn't even look like he had made a dent in the giant stacks of paper. He never would have imagined that this much could build up with only a couple days of neglect.

As Naruto leaned back in his chair, taking a momentary break from the huge amount of work, a knock sounded on the office's door.

"Come in," Naruto instructed. He smiled as Shino, Kiba and Hinata walked through the door. "Good morning guys! I've been expecting you."

"Good morning Hokage-sama," they all greeted in unison.

This made Naruto smile even wider. It felt amazing having people call him Hokage all day, he didn't think he would ever get tired of it.

"Okay, well as you know I'm sending you on a mission," Naruto said as he dug through the stacks of paper looking for the documents he had made up for their mission.

"So what do you have planned for us?" Kiba asked, "Something good I assume as you're making us bring all this crap."

"I guess you could say that," Naruto responded, finally pulling out a folder from the giant stack of papers. "Alright! Here it is." Naruto pulled out several documents from the folder and spread them out on his desk so that everyone could see them.

"You're mission is to go to the sound country and find where Sasuke is hiding," Naruto started, turning completely serious.

"Not this again," Kiba grumbled. Naruto had tried and failed many times to retrieve Sasuke. While Kiba was sympathetic for what Naruto was going through, there was always a point when you had to cut your loses and move on.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto asked, anger rising in his voice.

"Look, I know how you feel, but there is nothing we can do to bring him back," Kiba replied. "I'll do whatever mission you give me, but even if we do find were Sasuke is hiding there isn't much we can do. Us three alone would never be able to fight him, let alone his army. So even if-"

"Kiba shut up," Naruto ordered bitterly. "You haven't heard what your mission is yet."

"Sorry, Naruto," Kiba apologized, knowing he had hit a sensitive spot for the man.

"It's Hokage-sama to you," Naruto sneered.

"Sorry, Hokage-sama," Kiba apologized again, now embarrassed by what he had said.

"That's better," Naruto continued. "I know there is nothing that you three could do against someone like Sasuke but I'm not asking for you to do anything like that. All I want you to do is find where he is hiding out and…" Naruto paused for a second, reaching into a drawer of his desk, pulling out a small scroll, "Leave this somewhere that he or one of his men will be able to find it."

"That's it?" Kiba asked, confused. "You're basically asking us to just deliver a message?"

Naruto nodded. "It may seem simple, but it will most likely be harder then you think. I have tried everything I can think of but I haven't been able to make even a single contact with anyone from the sound. Sasuke moves constantly so locating him is almost impossible."

"So why would we be able to find him?" Shino asked.

"Because you are the best tracking team Konoha has and you guys know Sasuke," Naruto responded, he wasn't angry anymore but still remained very serious. "If anyone can find him it would be you."

Hinata, Shino and Kiba all nodded, understanding their mission and how important it was to the new Hokage.

"Sir, not to be disrespectful," Kiba said, hoping Naruto wouldn't explode and kick his ass, "but why are we going on this mission. This seems like a lot of effort to go through just to give Sasuke a letter."

Luckily, Naruto didn't get angry. He looked down at the picture of Sasuke he had taken out of the folder and placed on the desk, reminiscing of the past. "Because I promised I would bring him back and someone that has become Hokage should be able to protect the ones important to him and keep his promises to them. Even if it's likely that Sasuke will never come back I will never stop trying, and if its necessary I will stop him myself if he ever tries's to lay a finger on any of Konoha's people."

The room was silent now, no one knowing what to say next. They all understood what he was saying and they would do their best to complete this mission, no matter how difficult it may be.

The long silence was broken by a short chuckle from Kiba.

"What's so funny?" Naruto asked with a trace of anger in his voice.

"Nothing," Kiba replied, "It's just that I don't think I'm ever going to be able to get used to taking orders from you. I'll give it to that you've gotten a lot stronger and you've definitely matured but still every time I look at you I think of that kid at the academy who couldn't even do a proper transformation technique."

Naruto smiled weakly at this, "Well we're just going to have to work on that, aren't we? Because you're going to be taking orders from me for a long time."

"Yeah, I guess so," Kiba responded, laughing lightly again. "Well, it's about time we leave then."

Everyone nodded. Shino stepped forward and took the scroll and documents from the Hokage's desk.

"Good luck everyone," Naruto said, smiling wider now.

"We'll do our best, Hokage-same," Shino said as he and Kiba walked for the door, ready to start their mission.

"Um, I'll catch up with you guys in a minute," Hinata told her teammates before turning back to Naruto. This would probably be her only chance to congratulate Naruto.

"What is it Hinata?" Naruto asked, starting to get back to his paperwork.

"Um, I just wanted to say that I think it's really great that you finally realized your dream and that you're really amazing," Hinata stammered, trying not to stutter or blush.

"Thanks, Hinata," Naruto replied smiling. "Be careful on your mission."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama," Hinata said, bowing as she turned to leave.

"Oh, and Hinata," Naruto continued. "No need to be so formal, it feels so weird when you say that to me."

"Okay, Thank you, Naruto-kun," Hinata said, blushing as she left the room.

With Naruto now being the only one left in the room he tried to get back to his work. His peace didn't last long as Sakura came bursting through the door only moments after Hinata had left.

"Hokage-sama, we have an emergency," Sakura gasped out, short of breath.

"What is it?" Naruto asked, adrenaline pumping.

"The feudal lord of one of the Fire countries largest provinces has become deathly sick. If he dies we could have a serious problem."

xx

A fragrant smell perforated the air in the small flower shop as Ino sat behind the counter, gloomy: waiting for someone to come in. It had been slow the last couple of days and since she had no missions to go on she had to work in her flower shop. Over the past few years Ino mom, who normally ran the shop, was getting older and gave much of the responsibility to Ino so that she wouldn't stress herself out too much.

While Ino didn't mind all too much as she enjoyed working in the shop, but sometimes it annoyed her when everyone else got sent on a mission but she was left behind because she had to watch the shop.

Ino place her head on the counter and groaned loudly, no one had come in the shop in several hours; people didn't have a reason to buy flowers recently.

"Yamanaka Ino?"

Ino shot back up into an upright position, startled. She hadn't heard any one come in.

"Y-yes," Ino stuttered, still surprised by the sudden intruder. She brushed the hair out of her eyes and examined the person in front of her. He had the strange cat mask and body armor. An ANBU?

"The Hokage requests your presence," the ANBU informer Ino, "If you would please come with me."

Ino nodded and followed the ANBU man out of the store, flipping the sign to 'closed' on her way out; no one was going to come today anyway.

When Ino arrived with the ANBU at the Hokage's office they found Naruto and Sakura already there. Naruto was sitting behind his desk looking over some paper and Sakura was waiting patiently in a chair to the side of the desk.

"Oh you're here," Naruto said as Ino entered the small room. "Thank you ANBU, you can leave now."

The ANBU man bowed and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"Okay, now that you're both here, Ino, Sakura, I have a mission for you," Naruto said, getting right to the point. "I've received word that one of the feudal lords in a large village to the north of here has fallen ill. That village has contacted us desperate for help."

"So we just have to go there and make sure he doesn't die?" Ino asked.

"Basically, but it's more complicated then that," Naruto responded. "The doctor of the town there is worried that there may be an epidemic occurring. He has reported that several other people have died in the village with the same symptoms that the feudal is showing now. If this continues to spread then the village may break down into chaos, if that happens we will have to intervene even further which could be risky. It is your mission to heal the Feudal lord and make sure that the village remains stable."

"You're just sending the two of us?" Ino wondered, "There won't be much we can do if something does happen."

Naruto nodded. "You two are the best medics in the village and your primary objective now is just to make sure that the feudal lord lives. If something does happen you are to report back immediately."

Sakura and Ino both nodded, understanding their mission.

"Leave as soon as possible," Naruto continued, "This mission is important, do your best."

xx

It was late in the day now, dusk upon the village. Temari walked slowly through the streets towards her destination. She had already dropped off the treaty at the Hokage's office and gave him a half-hearted congratulation. Now she was on her way to her real destination, the real reason she had come to the village.

She arrived at her destination shortly after, standing in front of the wooden door of a house on the edge of town. She banged on the door a few times, waiting for a response. She heard footsteps lazily making their way towards the door and after the person behind it fumbled with the locks a few times the door slowly opened.

"Who is it-" the man said, cut off as Temari pushed the door the rest of the way open, forcing the man back into the nearest wall and into a deep kiss. The man struggled at first, surprised by the brashness of it, but when he realized who it was, he relaxed and kissed back. After a long moment the man pushed Temari off, trying to catch his breath.

"What are you doing here?" The man asked, pushing the women off of him and walking back to what he had been working on before.

"What, you aren't happy to see me?"

The man didn't respond at first, he just walked back to the couch he had been sitting on and looked at the many maps and documents spread out on the table in front of it. "It's not that, I'm just a little surprised to see you," the man said finally.

Temari walked over to the couch and sat down next to the man, looking at the many maps and documents as well. "What's all this crap for? It's not like you to be doing so much extra work."

"Well, I was made Konoha's war and tactical advisor," He said, pausing for a second to make a couple marks on a map. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"I just came to get some treaties updated with the new Hokage's signature, I figured I'd just stop by and say hi while I was here," Temari replied. "I think I should congratulate you on your promotion as well though, Shikamaru."

Temari moved closer to Shikamaru and tried to bring him into another kiss but Shikamaru pushed her away.

"I can't do that right now, I have to work," Shikamaru mumbled, trying his best not to look over at Temari.

"You can take a break though, can't you?" Temari said, moving closer, trying to be as sexy as possible.

"Not really," Shikamaru responded, trying his best not to fall for Temari's tricks, although he could feel his self control abandoning him.

Annoyed, Temari backed off a little and folded her arms across her chest. "What are you working on that's so important anyway?"

"I'm just coming up with some possible strategies in case anything happens," Shikamaru replied, glad that Temari had given him some room. "We're not exactly on the best terms with a couple other hidden villages and now would be a prime time for them to make a move on us as we have just gotten a new Kage. If they do end up attacking I have to have the best plan possible so that we can minimize our casualties."

"Sounds _interesting_," Temari said sarcastically. She knew what he was doing was important but she knew what she wanted right now, and it definitely wasn't to sit here and watch the lazy man make war plans. "I'm surprised you took the job though, it's not like you to take on more responsibility, and wouldn't it be too _troublesome_?" Temari continued, mockingly.

"I'm not a little kid anymore; I can handle a little responsibility," Shikamaru sneered, annoyed with Temari's rude remarks.

"It's also not like you to be so temperamental," Temari sneered back. "This seems to be stressing you out; you should really take a break." Temari started to move closer again, waiting for an opportunity.

"Maybe…" Shikamaru conceded, he leaned back on the couch for a second, looking over at the women sitting next to him.

Temari took the opportunity and jumped on top of Shikamaru, bringing him into another deep kiss.

Shikamaru quickly pushed her away. "What are you doing?"

"Relieving some of the stress," Temari replied, "Plus, you deserve to be congratulated for your promotion." She continued as she brought Shikamaru into another kiss.

Shikamaru gave in now; it was pointless to fight her off anymore. Plus, he knew he wanted this.

"Fine, but…" Shikamaru started as he swiftly rolled Temari over so he was on top of her. "I just can't let-"

Temari interrupted him with another deep kiss. Pulling away she looked up at the man on top of her. "Some people never change…" She mumbled as he lowered in for another kiss.

xx

"Sir, I did as you requested." A soldier said, bowed down in front of his leader.

"Good," The leader responded, "Is there anything else?"

"No, sir," The man responded. "It's just; do you really think it is such a good idea to do what that monster says? He has a reputation for not keeping his word."

"Don't concern yourself with these things," The leader replied, "Just do your mission."

"Yes sir."

"If everything goes according to plan the next phase in our plan should commence soon. Get your men ready."

* * *

Review! Things are gonna start to happen now. I'd really like if I got at least 5 or more reviews per chapter so that I know people are reading this and what they think about it. I have a lot of free time in the next week so if I get some reviews I'll be motivated to get some more chapters out quick :).  



	4. Plans

Next chapter :). As always, reviews greatly appreciated, tell me what you think and what you would like to see.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters (do I really have to put this in every chapter?)

* * *

Chapter 3: Plans 

"So what's the plan?" Kiba asked his teammates.

Kiba, Hinata, Shino and Akamaru were all huddled together on a large branch on the edge of the fire country, looking at a map of the sound country. They had been traveling for most of the day and had stopped to take a break and put together their plan.

"This is going to be difficult," Shino replied. He examined the map, putting together plans in his head. "Over the past decade the sound country has expanded it territory greatly so we have a very large area to cover."

Shino traced the border of the sound country with his finger on the map. The only problem here was that there was no set border. The borders for all the nations constantly expanded and shrunk and it was impossible to tell just how much territory the nation was in control of.

On top of that the sound nation was different then most. Most of the other nations consisted of several villages, towns and cities that controlled the majority of the nation's politics and economy. These villages in turn relied on the hidden villages for protection. The hidden villages, like Konoha in the fire country, were the militaries of the nations. They did missions for the people of their nation and other they were friendly with as well as protecting the nation's best interests.

But the sound was different. They were a militaristic nation. Their hidden village, lead by Uchiha Sasuke, was in total control of everything that happened in the nation. They had the final and only say in all the politics of the nation. There were still many smaller villages and cities in the nation, but they had little say in what happened and were forced to live in constant fear of what the military might do to them if they went against its will. To Sasuke, the villages in the country served little purpose, only to give him new recruits for his army.

This was in part due to the way the sound had started. It had been created by Orochimaru as a base for his ambitions and as a hidden village without a nation to belong to. Slowly, as the power of the sound started to increase, it expanded its power by taking over villages and territories of bordering nations, slowly creating a nation for itself, with the hidden village of the sound in charge of it all.

And this was also something that was different about the sound; there was no 'village' so to speak of, that the sound constantly occupied. Most of the other nations had one set location that it used as its base of operations, like the village of Konoha. But since the sound was founded by an S rank criminal, having one set location would no work. Instead the sound operated from a constantly moving base of operations so that locating it would be incredibly difficult.

"So how are we going to go about doing this?" Kiba asked, breaking everyone's quite concentration, "We can't just go running around the country until we find it."

"We are going to start by searching all of Sasuke's previously known locations," Shino responded, indicating several small red 'X's on the map that showed past bases or sighting locations. "This alone will be difficult. Most of his previous known locations are underground caves which are very difficult to locate if you don't know what you're looking for. Searching them will also be risky. We have to avoid detection at all costs, if we do find him in any of these locations we are to drop of the objective and leave immediately."

"What do we do if he is not in one of these locations though?" Kiba queried. "The sound country is far too large to search every inch of for a trace of him. He may not even be in this country any more for all we know. He's been gaining allies in other nations, for all we know he could be hiding out there."

"That's right," Hinata replied, wanting to voice her opinion. "If we want to search everywhere he _could_ be we would have to search multiple countries."

"That's why we're hoping that he turns out to be in this country," Shino continued. "We have been given a time limit of one month on this mission. If we get no leads as to his location by that point we are to return to Konoha and fail the mission."

They all remained silent after this, contemplating their best possible options. None of them wanted to fail this mission. Not only did they know how important it was to Naruto but every time a ninja failed an important mission they would be forced to go on lower rank missions for a while, not being trusted with the important ones.

"So if he's not hiding in any of his old locations," Kiba said, breaking the silence, "We're going to have to find someone we can get information from. There has to be someone in this country that knows his location."

Shino nodded, agreeing with Kiba's idea. "That is most likely our next step. None of the villagers would know anything though as they are constantly kept in the dark on everything that happens in this country. We know that Sasuke uses many spies to gather information for him. Most likely they would know his location so we are going to try and capture on of them alive. This is going to be difficult as well. Most of the people that are aware of Sasuke's location are stronger and will not be taken easily. It will also be difficult to locate one as they are also trained to avoid detection. On top of that we are going to have to avoid being found out by one of them, because if Sasuke finds out what we are doing we may run into more trouble."

They all became quite again, realizing the incredible difficulty of their current mission. They would spend the entire mission in enemy territory, having to remain alert to avoid any unnecessary enemy contact. They would also simultaneously have to be looking for enemies they could interrogate and any sign of Sasuke's hideouts.

Again, Kiba was the one to break the silence. "Why are we doing this?"

"What do you mean, Kiba?" Hinata wondered.

"I mean why are we going through all this trouble to just deliver some message to Sasuke?" Kiba asked.

"Because it is our mission," Shino responded.

"Still, there has to be an easier way to do this then searching through the entire sound country to find him," Kiba retorted. "What does the message even say?" Kiba reached into his pack and pulled out the scroll the message was written on. They had actually been given three of the same scroll, just in case one was damaged or lost. Kiba started to peel back the first layer of the tightly wrapped paper but Shino grabbed his hand to stop him.

"Don't open it." Shino demanded sternly; forcing Kiba to place the scroll back in his pack. Kiba complied reluctantly, but still was not satisfied.

"Why the hell not?" Kiba barked back childishly.

"Because Naruto told us not to," Hinata answered. "That should be enough." Hinata wanted to avoid an argument between Kiba and Shino. Even though they had all grown and matured, Kiba and Shino still had a tendency to disagree on a lot and things could quickly break down into a fight.

"Even so, I still don't get why we have to risk our lives like this to deliver a message," Kiba muttered, calming down a little sensing Hianta's discomfort. He knew how much Hinata hated his and Shino's arguing so Kiba tried his best to stay calm for her.

"You haven't been able to sense it?" Shino responded.

"Sense what?"

"Naruto's chakra." Shino replied. "There is a large amount of it concentrated in each of these scrolls."

"So what? Are they just summoning scrolls or something? Does he expect Sasuke not to detect that at all? I mean, even if Sasuke does open it, what does Naruto even plan to do?" Kiba continued, bombarding his teammates with questions.

"It's not a summoning scroll or anything like that, you can tell by the size," Shino replied, taking his own scroll out of his pack, showing how the small cylinder was far too small to contain the complex markings necessary for a summoning scroll. "I'm not sure what it is, but Naruto obviously has plans that go far beyond just delivering a message to Sasuke."

xx

"Thank you for coming so quickly."

Sakura and Ino both nodded as the doctor bowed down in appreciation.

"Please follow me," The doctor said, beckoning the two medic's to follow him to where the sick feudal lord was. It had only taken Sakura and Ino less then a day to arrive at the town in the north of the fire country and the doctor had been at the main gate waiting for them. The doctor now led them down several streets and to a large estate at the center of the village. The doctor then led them through several hallways to a large room inside the main house on the estate.

Sakura and Ino entered the room not knowing what to expect. They had both handled their fair share of injuries and illnesses but they never knew quite what the next case could bring. And as expected, what they saw in that room was different then any other illness they had ever dealt with.

The feudal lord was a relatively elderly man, somewhere in his 60's, and as such his skin was slightly wrinkled and his hair was graying. That, of course, was not the shocking part though. The man had broken out in a cold sweat, typical of many illnesses and was groaning and muttering things to himself, most likely a sign of a fever and hallucinations. There was caked vomit and blood on the corners of his mouth and several bowls and towels at the side of the bed, all covered and filled the blood and vomit. This as well, was not to shocking, as many diseases could cause fevers as well as nausea, although it was evident that whatever the feudal lord has was serious based on the fact that he was vomiting blood.

The shocking part of the illness that the feudal lord had contracted was the rash the doctor had mentioned before. The elderly lord had had his shirt removed and his chest and stomach were exposed. Both Sakura and Ino gasped as they saw the sickening rash that had developed. The skin on the man's entire front was a dark red and blood was leaking from several tiny holes and slits that had developed on the dark red mass. It appeared that the doctor had tried to bandage the rash and gashes as well but had given up.

"It's been getting worse," the doctor informed them. "At first he just had a mild fever and some patches of rash, but slowly the fever started to intensify and he started to vomit blood. Them the rash started to spread to almost his entire body and became that dark color of red. After that parts of the rash started to bleed and when I tried to clean away the blood and bandage it…"

The man paused for a second, disgusted by just the memories of what had happened.

"T-the skin started to peel away."

It was then that the two medic's noticed that mixed in with the blood and vomit on the many towels and bowls were many little pieces of flesh and skin. They both stood silent for a short moment, taken aback by the shocking scene, but then years of training kicked in.

"Ino," Sakura said, nodding her head, giving Ino a silent order. Ino knew what she meant immediately and got to work. Ino quickly moved to the sick man and quickly checked his vitals. Taking his temperature and checking the dilation in his eyes. Sakura moved to the mans mid section, a faint blue and green glow appearing on her hands. She quickly started to examine the rash, trying to see if any of her medical techniques would be enough to at least stop the bleeding.

After several minutes examining they both stepped away, grim looks on their faces.

"Do you have any idea what this may be?" The doctor asked hopefully.

Ino and Sakura both shook their heads, they had never seen anything like this and they couldn't classify it as any disease they knew.

"I was afraid of that," the doctor sighed. "You can have access to all of our laboratories and all of the lord's medical records."

"Thank you," Sakura replied, "Ino, take a blood sample and look for anything suspicious." Ino nodded and quickly got to work, using her chakra to draw some blood out of the man's arm and putting it in a glass vial. She then left the room to head for the labs to examine the blood.

Sakura now turned back to the doctor. "Is there a possibility that he was poisoned or anyone wanted him dead?"

The doctor shook his head. "Not that I know of. He was a man of power so there is always a possibility that someone wanted him dead, but as far as I know the people here were very happy with him."

"You also said that there were a couple other people that showed the same symptoms as the feudal lord, do you think I could see their bodies?" Sakura asked.

"Sure, they are being preserved in the morgue for now, although I have to warm you its pretty grisly," The man replied, exiting the room, signaling for Saskura to follow.

Ino was on her way to the lab now. She had placed the vial of blood in her side holster and made her way out of the feudal lords house and down the street to where the hospital was. She had wondered why they hadn't moved the feudal lord to the hospital where it would probably be easier to treat him, but when she saw his condition she immediately understood their decision.

As Ino arrived at the Hospital she was greeted by a nurse who led her to a small lab in the back of the small hospital building. The lab wasn't much compared to what Konoha had, due in large part because in recent years Tsunade had used a great deal of money to insure the hospitals and labs were top of the line. Having arrived in the lab, Ino quickly got to work. She took the vial of blood from her pouch and quickly poured it into several, much smaller vials. While using many of her medical techniques she could often analyze blood samples well enough to determine the disease, but some times what was causing the problems in the blood was too small to be detected with even the most precise chakra control. In these cases modern lab equipment like computers and microscopes had to be used.

On the other side of the hospital, the doctor led Sakura to the morgue. Sakura wasn't quite sure what to expect. She had seen what had happened to the feudal lord and knew that whatever waited for her in the morgue wouldn't be pretty, but still, she wondered what a body would look like when this disease became enough to kill them.

"There have only been three cases like this so far," The doctor informed Sakura as he brought her into the freezer room where the body was being preserved. "One being the feudal lord. One of the others being the elderly women that we have here in the morgue. The last one being an elderly man that first showed these symptoms but had died alone of it before anyone had noticed he was sick—he has already been buried."

Sakura took a deep breath as the doctor removed the body from the metal shelf it had been stored on and brought it over to a gurney in the center of the room, still covered. Sakura gasped as the doctor pulled back the sheet that was covering the body, revealing the gruesome scene. The rash had spread to the women's entire body, including her face and had seemingly eaten away at her flesh.

"I've already tried to do an autopsy of the body but there wasn't much I could figure out," the doctor continued, "Most of the organs have been destroyed as well but I still couldn't figure out just what was causing this kind of damage."

Sakura slowly approached the grizzled body not sure where to start. There wasn't much she could figure out from this body. She had been hoping that maybe she could figure out if the disease concentrated on a single organ but based on the look of the body, it had destroyed ever organ equally. The only knowledge she could hope to gain from this body was possibly the order in which the disease had spread or possibly where it originated but even figuring that out didn't look likely. This body was so far decomposed that it was basically just a pile of bones with a few pieces of flesh stuck to it.

Back on the other side of the hospital, Ino had created a slide of the blood and now examined it under a microscope. As far as she could tell the blood was perfectly normal. The red and white blood cell count was normal and there didn't appear to be any anomalies in the blood. Sighing in disappointment, Ino took her eye away from the microscope and fell back into a chair, thinking of what to do next.

She had already run every test she could on the blood and it had come back negative for everything. As far as she could tell, this blood was perfectly normal. She couldn't give up though; she had to figure out what was wrong with the feudal lord at all costs. She grabbed one of the vials of blood she had centrifuged to separate the plasma into its individual parts and put it under a special microscope, hoping maybe to find something from this.

Again, nothing appeared to be wrong. The blood had separated normally into its parts and it had done so with the correct proportions of each part. But again, she still couldn't give up. She looked up and down the tube on the highest magnification hoping to pick up anything. On what was probably her fiftieth scan she stopped, spotting something at the very bottom of the tube.

"What the hell is that?"

xx

Naruto sat at his desk, going threw the motions, filling out paperwork, giving out missions and reading documents. He was worried about all his friends he had just sent on dangerous missions. He knew as Hokage he would have to make many difficult decisions but just knowing he had to make the decisions didn't make it easier. Everyday he had to decide who to send on each mission they received, knowing that if he picked the wrong team it could cause every one of them to die.

He was worried about Sakura and Ino now, while their mission wasn't particularly dangerous at the current moment, if things degraded and the village revolted against them, Sakura and Ino could be in trouble.

He was particularly worried about Kiba, Shino and Hinata. He had sent them on an incredibly dangerous and arduous mission. Not only did he know it would be next to impossible to locate Sasuke, but the dangers of getting caught in enemy territory were very high as well. They could have declined the mission if they wanted to but he knew they would have done it even if they were personally opposed because they knew how much it meant to him. He felt even worse about the mission because he hadn't been entirely honest with them on the true purpose of the mission.

Naruto looked over at the picture he had in the corner of his desk. It was the only picture he had that really meant something to him, the one of team seven when it had first been formed when Sasuke had still been with them. It was the closest he had ever been to having a real family.

_It's all your fault, you're too weak. This wouldn't have happened if you…_

"Shut up!" Naruto screamed, clutching his head.

"Hokage-sama?" Shizune said worriedly. She had been sitting in the corner of the room helping Naruto with his paperwork and had been alarmed by the Hokage's sudden outburst.

"S-sorry, its nothing, just a little stressed," Naruto responded, getting back in control of himself. He reached into his desk and pulled out a bottle of special pills and swallowed two of them quickly before throwing the bottle back in.

Shizune had a feeling she knew what was happening and was about to say something about it but was interrupted by a squad of four ANBU appearing out of thin air in front of the Hokage's desk.

"Hokage-sama, we have a report," one of the ANBU spoke out.

"What is it?" Naruto queried.

"Sir, we were scouting near the cloud village to the north-east and we noticed some strange activity," one of the ANBU replied. "It may not be anything but if they are organizing for an attack we should prepare immediately."

"Okay," Naruto said, completely alert now, thinking as quickly as possible. "I want two teams surveying all activity in the cloud village at all time. Someone go get the tactical advisor, we need him now!"

xx

Shikamaru rolled over in bed and groaned, unhappy to be disturbed from his sleep. He was about to go back to sleep when another loud knock sounded from the door. Reluctantly he started to get up, looking at the clock on his nightstand: nearly midnight. He groaned again and untangled himself from Temari, who was sleeping next to him and had developed a strong hold on his arm.

Finally able to free himself from the women's grasp Shikamaru headed to his front door, annoyed at having been awoken at such an hour.

"What is it?" Shikmaru muttered groggily as he opened the door to reveal an ANBU member standing outside.

"The Hokage requests your presence," The ANBU man responded. "Please bring all material you have regarding the cloud village."

xx

Water droplets fell from stalactites and eerie glow was cast by the moonlight leaking into the cave from the gaping newly formed hole in the ceiling of it.

"This place wasn't hidden very well," Sasuke told himself as he walked through the previously hidden cave. There wasn't much light so Sasuke used his Sharingan to examine the cave, in search of his objective.

Sasuke walked up to one of the far walls of the cave and placed his hand lightly on it, feeling the cold slimy rock. A burst of blue electricity exploded from his hand flowing threw the wall. The wall exploded into thousands of small chunks, revealing another small chamber beyond the main cave.

Sasuke smirked to himself, "This wasn't very well hidden either."

He walked forward into the small chamber, looking over the walls until he saw what he was looking for.

"This is a little disappointing," Sasuke spoke aloud. He walked to the far wall of the small chamber and reached into a small hole in the rock and pulled out a small scroll. It wasn't exactly what he had been hoping for but it would undoubtedly lead him one step closer to his true goal.

Sasuke examined the scroll, checking for any traps it may contain with his sharp eyes before peeling back the outer layer and opening the scroll. He read the contents quickly, scanning over the many lines of text. Satisfied with what the scroll contained he quickly placed it in a pocket on the interior of his robe.

"Only a minor delay," Sasuke said, comforting himself as to not loose his temper. "I'll get what I want eventually."

* * *

Review! Thank you everyone that has reviewed already, I really appreciate it, although I love all reviews I get! 

Does the descriptions of blood and gore like I have in this chapter give this fic the need to be re-rated to M? I may have to re-rate eventually though because there will eventually be some pretty strong, graphic violence and most likely some strong language as well, but I want to keep it T as long as possible so hopefully more people will see it :).


	5. A Step Back

Well here's the next chapter. Thank you everyone that has reviewed so far, it is greatly appreciated. Sorry if some of the chapter is inconsistent, I was in a bad mood while writing some of it, so that may reflect in my writing. So review! Help me get in a better mood :).

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Chapter 4: A Step Back 

"Sorry to call you this late, hope I didn't interrupt anything but this was important," Naruto apologized to a very grumpy looking Shikamaru.

"Don't worry, I wasn't doing anything…" Shikamaru replied groggily, telling a half truth.

"So you understand the situation?" Naruto asked, he had told the ANBU to inform Shikamaru about everything they had learned from their spying.

"Yeah, I don't think we have to worry about them," Shikamaru responded, he placed several of his maps on the Hokage's desk, which Naruto had done his best to clear.

"What do you mean? If they are planning an attack that's something to worry about," Naruto was not pleased with Shikamaru's seeming lack of interest at the current time. He knew Shikamaru was lazy sometimes but he had always become reliable when he really needed to be, although right now it really seemed like he could care less about when happened to Konoha.

"Maybe I phrased that a little wrong," Shikamaru stated, sensing the Hokage's annoyance. He pulled another document out of the pack he brought which also contained all his maps. "This document shows the clouds numbers: their troop count, how many genin, Chuunin and jounin and their overall population," Shikamaru paused to take another document out of his bag and put it on the table as well, "And this is Konoha's data. As you can see our numbers are much bigger."

"So if they attack…?" Naruto knew that Konoha had a much larger force but that didn't mean an attack was impossible.

"They won't attack," Shikamaru responded plainly. "Attacking us would be suicide for them. I've come up with several plans in case they do attack," Shikamaru motioned to the maps which were marked up with troop movements and probabilities.

"But they still could attack…" Naruto was still not convinced.

"That's why I said I phrased that a little wrong," Shikamaru countered. "We don't have to worry about the cloud specifically; they aren't doing anything on their own. We have to worry about-"

"So you think they have allies that have agreed to attack with them?" Naruto interrupted.

"Not exactly, I thi-"

"But you said-"Naruto interrupted.

"Will you let me finish…?" Shikamaru grumbled, "While it is a possibility that they could ally with another village it is not likely. They know of our strong relationship with Suna and the fact that we are at least neutral with most of the other nations, just allying with another nation and attacking wouldn't be enough."

"So what are they planning on doing?" Naruto was still confused, "The ANBU has gotten reliable information that shows that the cloud does appear to be planning something, so if they don't plan on attacking then what are they planning?"

"That's what we have to figure out," Shikamaru said, he was just as confused as Naruto as to what the cloud's actual plan was, "Because if you're information is accurate and the cloud is indeed planning on going to war, then they must be planning to do something big first, something that could both cause us to loose our allies and lessen our numbers."

xx

Ino rushed from the lab, hurrying back to where she thought Sakura was. She wasn't quite sure what it was she had found at the bottom of that test tube, but whatever it was could be a clue as to what exactly was causing this illness. Right now she had to find Sakura to see if she had any idea what it was. Although Ino wished she could figure this out on her own to prove that she was at least as capable as a medic nin as Sakura, she couldn't let her pride get in the way of trying to save someone's life.

When Ino arrived back in the Feudal lord chambers she was disappointed to find that Sakura wasn't there. A pair of nurses sat at the side of the elderly feudal lord, gently dabbing a damp towel on his head and trying to clean some of the blood from the mans chest without peeling away the skin. They both wore surgical masks and latex gloves, obviously scared of catching whatever their leader might have.

"Excuse me; do you know where Sakura, the other Konoha medic, went?" Ino asked to two nurses.

"Yes, the pink haired medic went to the morgue with the doctor to examine a body," one of the nurses responded, "If you like, I can show you to the morgue, it is in the hospital."

"Thank you," Ino replied, "I can find it on my own though."

The nurse nodded and looked back down to the frail feudal lord, a tear falling down her face. "Please do your best to save him," she whispered.

Ino nodded, "I'll do my best." She knew that the probability that the feudal lord would survive was low, especially seeing his continually deteriorating condition, but she didn't lie, she would try her best.

"One last thing," The nurse added, "If you are ever dealing with any one with this disease, it would be best to wear some kind of protection to make sure you don't get sick yourself."

Ino nodded and left the room, hurrying back to the hospital. She had to find Sakura as quick as possible, what she had found in the test tube was their only lead at the current moment and she couldn't waste time; with every passing minute it seemed as if the mans conditions got worse and worse. At this rate it wasn't likely that he would last more then forty eight hours if he was lucky. That was, unless they found a cure. So Ino ran as fast as she could from the feudal lord's manor to the hospital, quickly finding her way to the morgue.

As promised, Sakura was down there, a protective apron, gloves and mask on, wrist deep in what appeared to be little more then a jumbled pile of flesh. The doctor was there as well, assisting in Sakura's autopsy of the grotesque body.

"Sakura, you have to take a look at this," Ino said as she ran into the room, holding out the vile of centrifuged blood.

Sakura nodded, showing that she had heard, but continued to dig deeper into the corpse she was working on, deep in concentration. She had been examining the corpse for more then an hour, and like the doctor said, there was very little that could be determined from the corpse. As far as Sakura could tell, the cause of death was that the women bled out. All her organs were deteriorating, but there didn't seem to be a reason why they were. The whole corpse looked like it would if the women had died of a heart attack and had been left to rot for a year. Sakura had been hoping she would be able to find a source of the disease, but all the organs were attacked equally and there were no infectious bacteria or parasites that she could find that may have caused the deteriorating.

Finally, Sakura gave up for the time being, interested in what Ino had to show her. She took a few steps from the corpse, breathing a deep sigh of disappointment as she removed her protective gear.

"What is it, Ino?"

Ino didn't answer; she just motioned for Sakura to follow her back to the lab. The two quickly made there way from the morgue to the lab where Ino had been working before. Ino quickly set up the microscope and motioned for Sakura to take a look.

"I don't see anything strange," Sakura stated, disappointed. Surely Ino wasn't trying to play some joke in such a serious situation.

"Look closer, at the very bottom," Ino ordered, "I didn't see it at first either. It may be nothing but its one of the only clues we've gotten so far so I wanted to run it past you."

Sakura obeyed and looked closer, straining her eyes are much as she could, trying to determine what exactly it was Ino was talking about. After several minutes of searching, Sakura finally gave up.

"Ino, I don't see anything," Sakura said as she stepped away from the microscope. "Are you sure there was really something there? It could have just been your imagination. We're under a lot of stress so it wouldn't be surprising if your mind made you see things so you could come to some sort of diagnosis, even if it was wrong."

"I'm sure I saw something," Ino responded bitterly, walking over to the microscope, pushing Sakura out of the way before taking another look. "What the hell, it isn't here anymore!" The small spec of hope she had seen before was gone.

"Ino, maybe you should get some rest, it's getting late," Sakura said, putting a hand on Ino's shoulder, trying to console the clearly frustrated women. "You aren't going to be any use if you are exhausted and seeing things."

Ino nodded, feeling defeated. She was sure there had been something there. Whatever she had seen she was sure it was the source of the disease.

"The Feudal lord's temporary step in has arranged for us in the lords mansion, you should go get some rest," Sakura suggested. She personally didn't plan on sleeping tonight, she was determined to save the old mans life. But Ino wouldn't be any help if she was hallucinating; she needed to get some rest.

Ino obliged to Sakura's request. She headed back to the feudal lords mansion to get some rest. She would only rest for a few hours and then she would come back and determine what it was she had seen before. She hated it when Sakura acted like this, she was trying to act nice, but she was really patronizing Ino, acting like she was so much better. But despite how she really felt, Ino complied. She couldn't deny she was tired, she would get a few hours of rest and prove that she was at least as capable a medic nin as Sakura.

When she arrived at the manor she was lead by a servant to a small guest room. The room was plain, a tidily made double bed with white sheets, a chest of drawers and a small nightstand with a glass of water and sleeping pills on it. Ino walked over and collapsed on the bed. She glanced over at the sleeping pills and decided against taking them; she couldn't beat Sakura if her mind was clouded with drugs. She did, however, pick up the glass of water and drain it, she hadn't drunk anything for quite a long time and she had been parched. The immense exhaustion she had been feeling finally caught up with Ino now, and she fell asleep without even getting undressed.

Her sleep didn't last long as moments later a nurse burst through the door.

"Miss Ino, someone else has gotten sick with the same symptoms!"

xx

"Are you sure this is the place?" Kiba grumbled.

Shino nodded, "This is the place. We are at the exact coordinates given to us."

"But I don't see any entrance," Kiba said, scanning the area for any possible trap doors or entrances.

"That's why it is a _hidden_ base," Shino mocked, he really hated how Kiba could be so impatient sometimes.

They were at the first known base that Sasuke could be at. It was early in the morning now, before the sun had even risen. They four of them had decided that it would be best to investigate any possible base under the cover of night—for obvious reasons. It had been fairly easy to make their way to the first base; it was just proving much more difficult to get in. They had photographs of all the possible bases, so they were sure they were in the right place, but the place had changed since the photograph had been taken and the entrance had been covered up, so they had to search for another one.

Hinata was scanning the area with her byakagan, although this was proving futile as the entrance had no chakra markings that she could pick up. Shino was using his bugs to search for any entrances while Kiba was hopping around, trying to find a strange scent that may signify and opening. Akamaru was doing similar, taking a more methodical approach, pressing his nose to the ground and making rows back and forth, trying to cover the entire area. They had been searching for about half an hour and had uncovered nothing. There was always a possibility that the base did not exist anymore, as Sasuke could easily destroy a base he did wish to use anymore. But they couldn't just give up searching because it was difficult to find the entrance. The fact that it was difficult to find the entrance could mean that Sasuke was indeed hiding here and had re-secured the entrance to prevent intruders.

Just when they were about to give up; Akamaru let out an excited bark, signaling that he had found something. The three other teammates rushed over to where the giant white dog was frantically shoveling dirt and leaves off of a wooden plank.

"Good job, Akamaru," Kiba yelled as he ran over to where his dog had uncovered the trap door. He helped Akamaru shovel off the last bits of dirt and fully uncovered the entrance.

"It doesn't look like he's here," Shino concluded flatly.

"What do you mean?" Hinata asked, wondering how Shino had come to that conclusion without even searching the base.

"Chances are if he was here, he would have hid the entrance with an illusion," Shino responded, "The fact that we were able to find the entrance so easily means that most likely he is not occupying this base any longer. At most he may still have a few minions here, but he himself, is somewhere else."

"We should still search inside though," Kiba added, "We can never be sure he's not here until we look, and even if he isn't here we may be able to find some clues as to his whereabouts."

"That's right, Kiba," Shino replied almost as he was telling a child they had gotten a question right in school. This made Kiba growl and grit his teeth; he hated it when Shino treated him like a little kid. He was a jounin for fucks sake!

Hinata senses the growing tension and intervened, "Let's start to search."

Everyone nodded and after the cover was removed, they each dropped down into the small hole one by one. They landed in what appeared to be a large atrium with several pathways leading out of it. The cave was completely dark besides the small amount of moonlight leaking in from the door they had uncovered. Luckily, they were all very adept at operating in absolute darkness, so searching the cave would be easy to do without using any artificial lights that may draw attention to themselves. Shino made a few hand signals to his teammates, telling them that they would split up and search each of the separate pathways. It was assumed they would be absolutely silent while in the bases as to not draw any attention. They also each had a wireless communicator that they could use to contact each other should they find something or run into trouble.

Seeing Shino's order, the four of them separated, each taking a different path. There were only three main paths that lead out of the atrium. Kiba and Akamaru took one leading directly in front of them, Hinata to the left and Shino to the right.

Shino moved slowly down his hallway. There were lines of doors on each side of the hallway, which he sent his bugs into to determine the contents of each room. Most of the rooms were empty. Some contained a cot or two and some had an equipment locker with a few loose kunai and shuriken strewn in it. But there was no Sasuke.

Hinata made her way slowly down her assigned hall as well. Using her Byakagan she checked each of the doors she passed, checking for any of signs of life. Predictably, there were none. The place was haunting yet beautiful, every room was so perfect, there were barely any flaws on the perfectly smooth ground and walls. She continued on, searching each room carefully with her byakagan, not finding anything until she came to a strange door. The door was wider then the others and was made of a different material. Hinata stopped at the door, concentrating as hard as she could; trying to see what was inside. She gasped when she made out several faint sources of chakra.

Kiba heard her gasp over their transmitters and immediately became worried. "Hinata are you okay?" Kiba asked in a whisper through the communicators.

"I'm fine," Hinata whispered back. She took a few steps closer to the large door until she was able to place her hand on it. She concentrated as hard as she could, trying to figure out just what was on the other side of the large metal door. There were definitely traces of chakra behind the door, although they weren't strong enough to be coming from a living person. Was this a morgue? Hinata gently applied pressure to the door and slowly eased it open, being as careful as possible not to make any noise. She peered in through the small crack she had made but still couldn't see anything. Slowly, she inched the door open more until the opening was wide enough for her to slip in. Once inside she finally saw what the true purpose of the room was.

"Hinata are you okay?" Kiba asked again, hearing the women gasp again. He had made it towards the end of his hallway now. There had been nothing out of the ordinary that Kiba had run into yet, just the same bland rooms over and over.

"I'm fine," Hinata repeated, covering her mouth trying not to vomit at what she was looking at. She had found her way into experimental lab, and the faint chakra came from mutilated dead bodies in suspended in giant liquid filled test tubes. The bodies themselves were grotesque. They appeared to have been left to rot for years and had decomposed to the point of almost only being a skeleton. Hinata scanned the room for a sign of a computer or possibly some data charts that could give her a clue to what the purpose of these experiments were, but it appeared as if the room had been abandoned for a long time and the only things left behind had been the bodies. Coming to the conclusion there was nothing that could be of value to her team she quickly escaped from the room and shut the door tight behind her, not being able to take the gruesome site anymore.

"Hinata have you found anything?" Shino asked in a whisper through the transmitter. He had reached the end of his hallway and was standing in front of a dead end.

"I found a lab with dead bodies in it," Hinata stammered, trying to get the images out of her head. "There was nothing that could help us in there though."

"Are you okay, Hinata?" Kiba asked for the third time. He also had reached the end of his corridor and had come to a dead end. He examined the perfectly flat wall he had come to and ran his hand over it, trying to find any hidden doors or switches that could lead him further. Akamaru sniffed at the bottom, trying the same.

"I'm fine," Hinata repeated for the third time. By this time she had progressed past the lab and had also reached a dead end. She quickly scanned the ending wall with her byakagan and came to the conclusion there was indeed nothing past the wall. She turned and hurried back to the atrium room they had started in, she wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

Shino examined the dead end wall he had reached and sent his bugs to determine if there was anything beyond it. It wouldn't be surprising if this wall could be another entrance, a network of under ground tunnels with multiple entrance and exits would make perfect sense. It fact it could help their search. While it seemed that all his bases were not connected together by a single network of tunnels if they could rule out multiple bases at a time it would make their search much easier. Moments later the destruction bugs confirmed Shino's theory. According to them, the wall was no more then a few feet thick and on the other side was the forest. Using his bug's eyes, Shino took a look outside and instantly recognized the patch of forest from a reconnaissance image they had. This made things slightly easier; they could now cross out at least two or three possibilities at a time.

"Guys, if you come to a dead end, make sure to check the other side of the wall," Shino ordered through his headset. "There is a possibility that it is another entrance."

"Got it," Kiba acknowledged. He looked at the wall again, ran his hand over the last part he hadn't checked and took a step back. "Well, I think we're come to the conclusion that no one is here, no point in being quite anymore, right Akamaru?" Akamaru barked in agreement and took a step back from the wall as well, knowing what Kiba was going to do. Kiba concentrated and molded his chakra to his right hand and his claws and released it all in one deft slash, effortlessly tearing a gaping hole in the thin meter of rock. Kiba and Akamaru stepped through the hole and into the forest beyond it.

"What the hell is this…?" Kiba stammered when he realized where he was.

Hinata was already half way back to the center room by the time she had gotten Shino's order. Reluctantly, she turned around and headed back towards the dead end. As she passed the laboratories door where she had seen the bodies she tried her best to look the other way, still wanting to get the gruesome images out of her head. As she arrived at the dead end she didn't waste any time. As fast as she could, Hinata concentrated her chakra into a special juken and released all the energy at a weak point in the wall. A small part of the wall broke apart and collapsed giving Hinata a window into the forest that was indeed beyond the wall. Like Shino, she instantly recognized it from one of the photos she had been shown before as another of the entrances.

"Shino, there is another entrance here as well," Hinata spoke into her communicator, already having turned around to head back to the atrium. "It's one that we already have marked."

"Good," Shino replied, "Kiba how about you?"

"This is bad," Kiba stammered again as he surveyed the familiar scenery.

"Kiba, what is it?" Shino asked through the communicator. "Did you find another entrance?"

"Y-yeah," Kiba responded, "Just this isn't one we have marked."

"Where are you Kiba?"

"I-I'm back in fire country."

xx

"Sir we've received word that Konoha spies have been seen in the area," a cloud ANBU informed his Kage.

The Raikage rubbed his head and groaned, "Have they seen our troop movement?"

"Most likely, yes." The ANBU man responded. "Do we abort the plan?"

"No," The Raikage responded immediately, "Their seeing our troop movement will in no way hamper the plan, continue as normal."

"But sire, if they suspect something is amiss they may figure out and stop our other phases and continuing would be suicide," The ANBU continued, worried about the Raikage's sanity.

"Continue as planned!" The Raikage yelled back, sick of his men's insolence. "If you don't follow the plan I will kill you myself!"

"Y-yes, sir," The ANBU stammered in response, vanishing, afraid his leader may loose it at any second.

"Do they not understand?" The Raikage yelled to himself. He was sick of his men's impudence, how were they supposed to win the war if all the men are so afraid to loose their own lives? Did they not understand? If they did not execute the plan as they were instructed, they would die anyway.

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Review! Is the story moving fast enough for everyone? I don't want to go through too much of the plot in one chapter because that could make the fic a lot shorter, but tell me if it starts to get boring. And like I said earlier, I've been in a bad mood, so review and make me feel better! 

Raikage is the right name for the hidden village of Clouds Kage right? I read that online somewhere but the cloud village hasn't played any role in the actual series so far so I'm not sure if that was the right name.


	6. A Bump in the Road

Next chapter :P. Was kind of disappointed that there were only 3 reviews for last chapter :(. More people have this story as a favorite then there are total reviews :O. The least you could do if you are enjoying my writing and have this favorited or alerted is to drop by and leave a comment. No big deal though, although all critiques and suggestions are appreciated!

I do not own Naruto or any of it's characters (Do I really have to say that?)

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Chapter 5: A Bump in the Road 

"She fell ill earlier this night," a young women said in between sobs. "We thought it was just a mild fever at first but then that rash started to appear."

Ino crouched next to the elderly women who lay sick in her bed. The women was in her early seventies and she already had a very high fever as well as the dark red rash developing on her chest. The women who had summoned her here had identified herself as the elderly womens daughter and she was noticeably distraught by her mothers illness. Despite the towns effort to keep the illness of the feudal lord as secret as possible word had spread quick of the mans disease and an undertone of fear could be felt by everyone in the town.

Ino examined the sick elderly women, making sure to keep protective gloves and a mask in between her and the apparently infectious disease. The women showed all the same symptoms as the feudal lord: the rash, the fever, the cold sweat. The disease was in a more infant stage in the women so far though, and Ino hoped that she could learn something because of the diseases less developed state in this women. At the least there was a possibility that this case could give them some insight as to how to disease spread.

"Has your mom come in contact or been in close proximity to the feudal lord or any of the citizens that have become sick?" Ino asked the still crying younger women.

"Not that I know of, no," the women sniffled, "She's been staying at home most of the time recently because she has some hip problems."

Ino considered the information that she had been given. Apparently the disease was not spread by direct contact and most likely was not an airborne virus. If it was then the many nurses and aids that had been in constant contact with the feudal lord would be sick and not this woman. So far it also seemed that only older people had been affected, which made sense as there immune systems were more susceptible to viruses. Infants and younger children also had underdeveloped immune systems as well although, and there were no cases so far of any of them becoming sick.

The disease had only been around for less them a week though according to the town folk. And so far four people had been affected, meaning that the disease was starting to spread fairly rapidly. There was also the possibility that the spread could of the disease would increase exponentially once a few more people became sick, assuming they did, because more people would be in contact with the disease.

But now was not the time to think about that. Ino had to think about how to cure this disease and quick before it started to spread further. Right now this women was her best lead. If she could take a few blood and tissue samples there was always a possibility that something would show up that had not in the feudal lords results because of the earlier stage of the disease in this women.

"Excuse me miss," Ino said to the elderly women's daughter, "I'm going to take a blood sample and run a few tests, do you think you can stay by your mother's side and contact me assuming any change in her condition."

The young women nodded and sniffled a little, wiping some tears from her eyes. "Please save her."

"I'll do every thing I can," Ino responded. It was never a good idea to tell a patients family that you would save their loved one, as anything could happen and nothing was ever certain with illnesses and injuries. It was especially a bad idea to make any promises when the prognosis was so bleak.

Ino quickly drew some blood from the elderly women's arm and placed it in a glass vial before quickly exiting the womens house. So far they had left all the patients with these symptoms in their own beds, as they were afraid that moving them could worsen their condition. If more people started to come down with this illness though, they would have to start bringing them to the hospital as it would be too difficult to be running all over town to attend to each patient.

Back at the feudal lords mansion Sakura was still attending to the feudal lord as best she could. Things were looking bleak for the old man, his condition wasn't getting any better and she and Ino were not coming any closer to determining the source of the disease. Right now the most she could do for the man was too make him as comfortable as possible. She had given him heavy doses of some pain medications and had him on a morphine drip to make sure he felt little pain.

Even if they did manage to find a cure it was most likely to late to save this man. He had lost a lot of blood and there was a significant amount of damage to many of his internal organs. If they found a cure he would still die of blood loss or from one of his organs failing. On top of that his bodily appearance had been destroyed, almost his entire body having been encompassed by the horrible rash.

Sakura had been working endlessly to try and cure the disease. Trying every medication and cure she could think of, trying to get at least some response from the man, but so far—nothing. Sakura was quickly running out of ideas and hope.

Over in the lab Ino was starting to run all the tests again. She checked for every disease she could think of but so far, like the feudal lord, nothing. Again, as her last option, Ino desperately scanned a tube of centrifuged blood. All the cells were in the correct proportions but Ino was sure there was something extra. She was sure that if she kept looking, she would find that black substance she found before.

After several intense minutes of searching, Ino turned up nothing. Maybe she was just exhausted and was seeing things before. Now that she thought of it, she was still exhausted as she hadn't been able to get any sleep as she had been called to the old womens house. But she couldn't give up, she couldn't be beaten. By this disease, by Sakura, by anything. So she kept on searching, and eventually, she saw it.

That black spot, it was here too. It was small, barely visible even with a high power microscope. Like before, it was at the bottom of the test tube, so it was denser then any other part of the blood. What was it? It was so small that no feature of it could be made out other then that it was black. As she continued to look at it almost looked like it was growing even smaller still until she could almost not make it out at all.

This had to be what was causing the disease. And whatever it was was disappearing before her eyes. This was why Sakura hadn't been able to see it, because by the time she had examined the blood it had disappeared. How could it possibly disappear like that? Was it possible that this was some kind of virus that once taken out of the warmth of the human body would disintegrate into nothing? It was possible that this was the case, it would explain why they hadn't been able to find the source of the disease yet.

Ino tore herself from the eyepiece of the microscope once the final traces of the black substance disappeared. Even if she did assume that that substance was the source of the disease, there was till very little she could do to cure it if she couldn't isolate the substance.

Ino fell back into a chair located in the lab and yawned loudly. She was completely exhausted and she didn't think she could stay awake much longer. Just when consciousness finally started to slip away while she sat there in the chair, a nurse came running in through the door.

"Miss Ino, two more people have become ill with the same illness," She gasped.

Ino cursed to herself under her breath and followed the nurse out of the lab to where the new cases were. If they couldn't find a cure for the disease, then they had to find out how the disease was spreading and stop it, before it was too late.

xx

"So do we report back?" Hinata ask her team as they all stood huddled near the entrance they had all originally entered Sasuke's first base with. The sun was rising off above the hills in the east, casting long shadows on the ground.

"Kiba where exactly in fire country were you?" Shino asked, trying to think of their best option at the current moment.

"Somewhere in the north-east corner," Kiba replied. "I recognize the place because Akamaru and I have been camping there a couple of times, although its still about a days travel or more from Konoha."

Shino pulled out his map and placed it on the ground, letting Kiba 'x' out where the entrance he had found was. The entrance was near the outermost border of the fire country, but it was in the fire country nonetheless.

"I don't think this warrants ending our mission early," Shino concluded after a moment of deep thought.

"But if Sasuke has tunnels leading into the fire country we have to tell Naruto about it!" Kiba argued.

"You should at least call him the sixth or the hokage now," Shino reprimanded. He didn't like Kiba's constant disrespect for their new leader. "But like you said, the tunnel doesn't lead too deep into fire country, there isn't much to worry about at the current moment."

"So do we continue on?" Hinata asked. "The Hokage wouldn't want us to waste time." While this was true the real reason Hinata wanted to move on was that she wanted to get as far away from the laboratory as possible.

"I guess we should," Kiba conceded. He still felt that what they had discovered was worth mentioning to the Hokage as soon as possible. He never knew Sasuke as the type of person to do something half-assed, and he didn't doubt that there were tunnels leading much deeper into fire country. But even though he was sure of this, it wouldn't hurt to move on. They would most likely find another tunnel leading even deeper into the fire country and once his team saw that they would have to report it to the Hokage.

"So we continue with our original plan," Shino said, drawing everyone's attention to the map. "We've already searched these bases." Shino pointed to 'X's on the map they had just gotten out of. "Our next step is to move on to these bases here." Shino pointed to the nearest marks on the map. "With any luck all the bases will be like this one and we can knock out multiple entrances at once."

"We should start moving now," Kiba offered, he was anxious to start moving. "We should be able to make it to the next base by-" Kiba froze, a strange scent catching his nose.

They all split at once, sensing the intruder all at once, finding places to conceal themselves in the trees. The unknown man grew closer and closer until he finally appeared in the clearing they were all hiding in, standing still about the hidden trap door they had concealed.

Shino watched the man bend down and inspect the uncovered trap door. He wasn't surprised that this man was here. Shino expected that the bases would have some sort of sensors in them to alert someone if any intruder were to enter them. Shino examined the man, getting all the information he could from how the man moved and acted. Based on his outfit he was definitely a sound nin. He wore the sound forehead protector, an obvious sign, as well as having the gray jumpsuit that all of Sasuke's men wore. This man could mean trouble.

Sasuke would now know that someone was breaking into his hideouts and he would increase security. On top of that, if the man found any traces of any of them, Sasuke would know who he was dealing with and he would become impossible to find.

But this could also be a good thing. If they could capture this man before he could call for help they could use him to determine Sasuke's position and save a lot of time and effort. Shino scanned the trees in search of his other teammates, hoping to get their attention so he could relay his plan. He found Kiba easily enough and based on his stance he was thinking the same thing. Kiba was perched on a low branch, Kunai already drawn and crouched low, ready to attack at any second. Hinata was on a higher branch, much more concealed then Kiba. Using her Byakagen she had a clear view of everyone though and saw what Shino and Kiba were planning.

With a quick tap on his communicator that only others wearing the communicator would hear, Shino signaled that he was ready. Kiba heard the tap instantly and responded with his own, signaling that he too was ready. Hinata followed with her own tap shortly after.

The sound ninja still stood inspecting the door and looked like he was about to drop down into the hatch. They had to act now unless they wanted him to get away. Acting quickly Shino tapped once more on his communicator and everyone on the team acted at once.

Before the sound ninja even had a chance to react he was covered with bugs, losing his chakra to them rapidly. Both of his arms were bound painfully behind his back by Kiba who also held a Kunai to his neck. Hinata jumped down shortly after and quickly sealed many of the tenketsu in the shinobi's legs and arms, making him incapable of moving. The man was captured.

"We should move him to another position," Shino suggested as he removed all of the man's weapons and searched him for any communicators. "Other reinforcements may come and we don't want to get caught."

Hinata and Kiba both nodded in agreement. Akamaru lifted the man onto his back and they quickly got away from the hot area. They traveled for five minutes until they were sure they were a safe distance from the area in question. Akamaru dropped the man off his back and Kiba quickly tied the man to a tree trunk, as if he was capable of escaping anyway.

"Tell us where Sasuke is," Kiba demanded, getting right to the point.

"Now how would I know where he is?" The sound nin mumbled, barely conscious.

"Who gave you the orders to come here?" Shino asked. He knew that it was unlikely that a low foot soldier would know where Sasuke was, but he could help them get one step closer to finding him.

"My captain," The man responded. He no longer had enough energy to keep his head upright and it had slumped forward, his chin now resting on his chest. Shino recalled his bugs, allowing the man to slowly regain some of his chakra.

"Where's your captain?"

"Heh, like I'd tell you," the man replied.

Kiba reached into his pouch and pulled out a small vial of clear liquid. "Trust me; you're going to tell us."

"Not a chance," The man laughed back.

"Trust me you won't be laughing once you have a little of this in you," Kiba responded. Reaching into his bag again he pulled out a Kunai and a small syringe. "I'll just store this here for a moment while I get this shit ready," Kiba continued as he drove the Kunai deep into the man's shoulder. The sound ninja let out a muffled scream of pain and gritted his teeth. "You're going to beg me to only be in this much pain in a couple seconds." Kiba laughed as he stuck the syringe into the small glass bottle and started to draw a small amount of the clear liquid out.

"Fuck you," The sound nin said. A loud cracking noise could be heard from his jaw. The man laughed one last time before his eyes rolled back in his head and his body started to spasm, white foam pouring out of his mouth.

"Shit! What the hell did he just do?" Kiba yelled. He dropped the glass vial and quickly tried to slap the guy out of his spasms. "Hinata! Stop this!"

Hinata rushed over, a faint green glow coming from her hands. She tried her best to stop the man's spasms but to no avail. "He's poisoned himself."

After a moment the spasms and the man slumped over, his body limp. "He's dead," Hinata concluded after checking the man's vitals. "There's nothing I can do."

Shino walked over to the body and examined his mouth. "He must have had a suicide pill in his teeth. We should have checked for that before we started to interrogate him."

Kiba gritted his teeth and balled his fists, trying to contain his rage. This had been their only lead to find Sasuke and the bastard committed suicide!

Shino took a few steps away from the body and looked back to his teammates. "We should continue moving. We know what to check if we capture another sound Shinobi."

"Fuck!" Kiba yelled out, unable to contain his temper any longer. Needing a little release, Kiba lunged at the man and connected a hard kick with the man's face, shattering his nose and cracking his skull against the tree, spattering blood onto the ground.

"Kiba control your temper," Shino reprimanded, unhappy with Kiba's disrespect for this fallen Shinobi.

"Damnit! This bastard was our only lead and now things are just going to get harder!" Kiba yelled, still angry. "When he doesn't report back they are going to know that an enemy is in sound country and security will be increased. There's no way we are going to find Sasuke now!"

"That may be true," Shino responded calmly, "But we can't give up that easily. Let's get moving, with any luck we can make it to the next location before anyone realizes this man is gone."

"Yeah, I guess," Kiba muttered, calming down slightly. He reached down and picked up the syringe and vial he had dropped before and placed them back in his pouch. "Let's get moving then, we shouldn't waste any time."

xx

Back in Konoha it was morning now. Naruto yawned loudly; he had only gotten a few hours of sleep and was still exhausted. Shikamaru was still in his office as well, working in the corner. It had been a long night and would undoubtedly be another long day. The two of them along with Shizune had been working for countless hours to determine the best counter to the clouds plans as well as looking through all the intel they had that could reveal what other things the cloud was planning. So far they had turned up nothing. If the cloud was planning something else, they were doing a good job of concealing it.

Naruto continued to sift through papers and documents, finally starting to feel the full stress of leading a village. On top of dealing with the possibility of the cloud invading he also had to do all the normal paperwork: handing out missions, signing treaties, etc… He hadn't even been Hokage for a week and already he felt like he needed a vacation.

Shikamaru was getting tired as well. Besides the few hours of "sleep" he had gotten back at his house, he had slept very little that night and he was exhausted. "Hokage-sama, I'm going to head home now, I'm exhausted." While he was exhausted and did want to go home for some sleep, he only told part of the truth. He really needed to get home so that when Temari woke up she wouldn't wake up alone in his bed: that could only mean trouble.

"Okay, okay," Naruto grumbled, too tired to try and argue to get Shikamaru to stay. "If you find anything out be sure to report it immediately though."

"Sure thing," Shikamaru said as he headed for the door. But before he could even reach the door handle the door swung open and knocked him onto his back. Shikamaru groaned and rubbed his head, getting back onto his feet to come eye to eye with Chouji.

"Oh, sorry Shikamaru, didn't know you were there," Chouji apologized, helping his friend the rest of the way onto his feet.

"You should really knock first," Shikamaru grumbled, although he wasn't mad. He could never get mad at Chouji.

"Yeah, sorry again," Chouji repeated. He now turned his attention to Naruto. "I was asked to bring you these reports; they're supposed to be important I guess." Chouji held out a small folder for Naruto to take.

"What are they about?" Naruto asked as he quickly scanned through the many documents.

"Apparently a small hidden village far to the north collapsed," Chouji replied, "It wasn't any of the major villages but it should still be of mild interest to you."

Naruto frowned and looked through the many documents in the folder closer now. Like Chouji had said, a small hidden village far to the north had collapsed, apparently because of financial problems. It wouldn't have any affect on Konoha though. They had had no dealings with the village what so ever and the villages collapse meant little to Konoha. It was strange though for the village to collapse so suddenly. According to the reports the village was doing very well financially until suddenly it income completely collapsed and the village failed almost instantly.

"Do you have any more information on this?" Naruto asked.

"The only thing we know other then that the village had collapsed is that a small organization may have been responsible for it." Chouji responded.

"A small organization? Like Akatsuki?" Naruto wondered. If another organization did materialize like Akatsuki it could mean trouble. Akatsuki had destroyed several smaller villages when it was in power, although he had never heard of them destroying them financially.

"Apparently the organization if not a violent one like Akatsuki," Chougi responded. "They only use nonviolent means to get across their point. Somehow the organization was able to convince all the villages that relied on the hidden village to stop going to the Shinobi there for missions."

Naruto frowned even harder now. An activist group? Why would a group exist that wanted to stop villagers from going to hidden villages for missions? If the group reached Konoha it could mean trouble. Even though he had only been Hokage for a short time he knew that if missions stopped coming, if even for a couple of weeks, then the village could easily develop serious financial problems. But this happened far to the north, Konoha had very little to worry about at the current moment.

"Is there anything else Chouji?" Naruto asked.

"No, that's it sir."

"You may leave then."

Chouji bowed and exited the room. Shikamaru, who was still in the room as Chouji's large girth had been blocking the door, left as well. Now only Naruto and Shizune were left in the room.

"So what do you plan to do about this, Hokage-sama?" Shizune asked.

"I don't think there is anything we can do now," Naruto responded. "This group doesn't seem to pose a threat as of yet and we don't know much about them. We could send a team to investigate, but I think it would be best if we kept most of our teams close in case the cloud moves."

Shizune nodded, agreeing with Naruto. She was surprised how much Naruto had matured and how much more intelligent he had become since the first time she had met him. He had analyzed the current situation well and quickly came up with the solution that would best fit the circumstances. "Do you think we should call back Shikamaru and ask his opinion?"

"Nah, he's tired and this isn't that important any way."

Shikamaru was already almost back to his house. He yawned loudly, still completely exhausted. The sun was already up, he hadn't checked a clock recently but based on the suns location and the length of the shadows on the ground it was about eight. He hoped Temari wasn't up yet, it would be troublesome if she was.

As Shikamaru arrived at his house he unlocked his door and entered as quietly as possible. Then he made his way to the bedroom as noiselessly as possible, cursing to himself when one of the floorboards squeaked. As he opened his bedroom door he swore under his breath as he realized the light was on and Temari was already awake, getting dressed.

"Oh, how nice of you return," Temari spat, quickly throwing on her clothes.

"I got called by the Hokage to do some work late at night," Shikamaru muttered in response, "How long have you been up?"

"Only a couple of minutes," Temari answered. "It was kind of disappointing to wake up in your bed to find no one in the house. You could have told me you were gonna leave you know?"

"Damn Chouji," Shikamaru muttered under his breath, if his friend hadn't prevented him from getting out of the Hokage's office when he had planned to leave he would have gotten back before Temari had awoken. "Sorry I didn't wake you, you looked too peaceful sleeping so I didn't want to bother you."

"How sweet," Temari said back, only slightly sarcastic.

Shikamaru started to undress again, planning on getting a couple of hours of sleep before he had to start working again.

"What are you doing?" Temari asked, curious why Shikamaru was getting back into bed when it was already morning.

"I was kind of planning to sleep some more, I didn't get much last night," Shikamaru responded groggily.

Having forgiven the man, Temari walked over to Shikamaru and pushed him down onto his bed before he had even finished undressing before climbing on top of him.

"And why you do think you're doing?" Shikamaru asked, a little shocked by Temari's sudden move.

"I just thought I'd join you," Temari replied as sexily as possible, placing a strong kiss on Shikamaru's lips.

Shikamaru, too tired to fight back, lazily kissed back, hoping Temari wouldn't take long.

"How troublesome."

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Hope you liked it! Like always, review! It takes me much, much longer to write these chapters then it would for you to write 1 sentence and tell me you read :D. 

Anything you guys want to see more of / want to see? No guarantees but if you ask for it I'll try to put it in :).


	7. Realizations

Sorry this took a little longer to get out then it normally takes me, I got busy and couldn't find time to finish this. Although its only been a week and this is by far the longest chapter so far so it's no big deal, right?

Thank you to everyone that has reviewed so far, please keep them coming!

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Chapter 6: Realizations 

"Please," The young boy pleaded, "These low rank missions are so boring, at least give us a C rank mission."

"Sorry, I don't think you're ready yet," Naruto responded, a smile on his face. His favorite part of being Hokage was dealing with all of Konoha's citizens, especially the younger children. A lot of them could be annoying and obnoxious like he had been when he was younger, but for the most part he really enjoyed their presence. He loved how they all looked up to and idled him and how they were so amazed when he taught them a simple little technique.

"But I hate D rank mission. If I have to pull one more weed or catch another cat I'm gonna loose my mind," the young boy argued back. "Just give us one C rank mission and I'll shut up."

Naruto just laughed at this, not a rude laugh, just a light chuckle. He had been just like this kid when he was younger. "You'll be strong enough eventually to go on higher missions, but for right now you just need to train and do your D rank missions. Trust me, if you go on a mission above your level too soon, it will always end badly."

"But I am strong enough, I can-!" The boy yelled back, cut off when his sensei covered his mouth with his hand.

"Sorry about him," The boy's teacher apologized, "He's a bit energetic. We'll just take the D rank missions and be on our way."

"It's no problem, I was the same way," Naruto laughed back, handing the teacher the short list of missions they had to accomplish for the day.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama," a young girl, one of the boys teammates said as she bowed and walked out of the room as the rest of her team left.

"What a moron," another of the teams young boys muttered, obviously annoyed with his teammates antics.

Naruto got another laugh out of this. This team was just like his had been. He was the energetic boy, Sakura was the sweet little girl and the bitter boy was...

_He'll never come back, your plans not going to work without-_

"Shut up!" Naruto yelled, pulling at his blond hair.

Everyone in the room turned to stare at Naruto, shocked by the sudden outbreak. The young energetic boy, who had been yelling and struggling to get out of his teachers grip, stood petrified, thinking his leader was about to kill him.

"S-sorry," Naruto stammered, trying to laugh some to lighten the mood. "I wasn't talking to any of you," he continued as he noticed the shocked gazes.

The teacher quickly herded his students out of the room, scarred what the Hokage might do if they annoyed him any more. Shizune, who had been standing in the corner do her work, still sat and looked nervously at Naruto as he reached into his drawer and pulled out a couple of the pills she had seen him take several times and down them.

"Hokage-sama, are you okay?" Shizune asked cautiously, not wanting to anger the man any more.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Naruto hastily answered, "Just a little stressed out is all."

Shizune was worried about the Hokage. He had gotten little sleep over the past week and he seemed to be relying heavily on whatever those pills were. Shizune was curious as to what the pills were; she was fairly certain she had seen Tsunade make them a long while ago when she was still alive but Shizune had never been informed at to what they were. She hadn't gotten around to asking Naruto either, as every time she was about to something came up. Seeing an opportunity now, Shizune took the risk.

"Hokage, sir, if you mind, can I ask what those pills are for?"

Naruto remained silent at first, seemingly ignoring the question. He went back to his work, stamping and filling out forms, eyes trained on his desk.

"I'm sorry," Shizune quickly added, seeing that Naruto did not respond well to the question. "I was just-"

"Tsunade and Sakura made them for me," Naruto interrupted, deciding the answer the question after all. It wasn't something he was particularly sensitive or embarrassed about, there was no reason to be; he just was trying to think of how to best explain it. "When the fourth sealed the nine tails in me, the seal was only strong enough to last fifteen years. After fifteen the years the seal was about to break but Jiraya was able to keep it contained using some of his own techniques. But slowly those started to loose affect as well. I tried to create some new techniques that would seal the nine tails more completely, but it turns out it's rather hard to do a sealing technique on yourself. Slowly, all the seals started to loose their affect and the nine tails started to escape, its chakra slowly pouring out and merging with mine. Even its personality started to overcome mine, its thoughts constantly entering my head. Sometimes I couldn't even control my own body because the nine tails would so completely take it over. Jiraya had created a patch before that would suppress the chakra but that stopped working because it wasn't powerful enough and the nine tails could easily break it. So Tsunade started to make medicine for me. She couldn't make anything that would completely suppress the nine tails chakra, but she at least made pills that would split our personalities so I wouldn't hear him in my head. That's what those pills are for; to make sure the nine tails doesn't take over my mind."

"So what do you do about the nine tails chakra when it tries to overcome you in battle," Shizune asked. She had seen Naruto fight several times, and many of those times the nine tails chakra would start to completely overpower his own. Sometimes the nine tails would be released so much that Naruto would loose total control of his body and wouldn't even remember what had happened after.

"Since the seal has broken, there's nothing I can do if I loose control and the nine tails starts to come out," Naruto responded quietly. If he ever got angered during a fight, the nine tails would come out so quickly now that he would loose consciousness almost instantly, the nine tails taking over. "All I can do in battle is control my emotions to make sure the nine tails does not release."

xx

In a town to the north of Konoha, Sakura and Ino continued to work tirelessly to try and save the feudal lords life. Sakura remained by the old mans side, doing everything she could to help him. At the current moment there was nothing more she could do; she had tried all medicines and treatments she knew and he was reacting to none of them. In the end all she could do was make him as comfortable as possible. She had him hooked up to a constant morphine drip and was having his vitals monitored.

Ino was currently in the hospitals lab, sitting in a chair, deep in thought. She was sure she had discovered what the cause of the illness was but there wasn't anything she could do about it. If she couldn't isolate the substance long enough to identify it and determine its properties there was nothing she could do to cure it. Deciding that sitting in the lab doing nothing was unproductive, Ino decided to go check up on Sakura's progress.

As Ino walked from the Hospital to where the Feudal lord was; she got an unusual amount of cold stares from the townspeople. She had sort of expected this to happen. By this point everyone had heard about the Feudal lord's condition and that two of Konoha's best medics had come to cure him. Although there were never any guarantees in medicine, the people had expected the medic's to cure their leader and return him to normal. Word had gotten out by now that the Feudal lord's condition was deteriorating and that the medic's were unable to do anything for him. So naturally the people had grown angry at them for not doing what they had expected both Sakura and her to be able to do. It was made even worse by the fact that Sakura had gotten quite a reputation throughout much of the world for being one of the best medic Nins, even better then her mentor, one of the sannins.

After a few unnerving moments on the streets, Ino reached the Feudal lord's mansion and quickly found her way to were Sakura was. Sakura was sitting by the Feudal lord's side, although she looked like she had given up hope as well.

"Sakura, can I talk to you for a second?" Ino asked as she entered the room.

Sakura nodded and motioned for the nurses that were in the room with her to continue watching the old man and to get her if anything went wrong. The two walked into the hall and walked far enough away so that no one could overhear their conversation.

"What is it Ino?" Sakura asked as they finally got far enough away.

"I think I've determined what the source of the disease is," Ino responded. "But I can't isolate it long enough to determine what it is. That's why you weren't able to see it before when I tried to show you, because it destroys itself a short time after it's taken out of the body."

"So what does this mean?" Sakura said. Although she did believe Ino she still thought there would be a chance that she was just seeing things because of her fatigue.

"It means we may not be able to cure this disease," Ino replied somberly. "Even if we were able to maintain the substance responsible for the disease at a temperature that may be able to keep it from destroying itself it is still far too small to identify."

"So if we can't cure if then what are we supposed to do?" Sakura was getting kind of annoyed now. She had already figured that this disease may be incurable, if that's all Ino had to say she was wasting time Sakura could be using to attend to the feudal lord.

"We have to find out how the disease is being spread," Ino continued. "If we can find the source of the disease we may be able to contain it and prevent it from spreading further."

"So how do we locate the source?" Sakura questioned, "All of the ones that have been infected haven't even had contact with each other so the disease is obviously not infectious by contact. The infection could come from anywhere, animals, some airborne chemical, anywhere. And if what you say is true about the substance degrading then there would be no way for us to locate it anyway."

"So then what do we do if we can't locate it?" Ino was at a loss now, she couldn't think of what they should do.

"I don't know, but we have to prevent the disease from spreading."

"Whatever we do we have to do it soon, we may not be able to stay here much longer," Ino added, "If the Feudal lord dies the townspeople may become hostile towards us. Since we can't fight back against them we would have to leave."

"So what she would do now then?"

Ino didn't have time to answer as a man came running down the hall towards them.

"Seven more people have become sick!" the man yelled. "This time some of them are younger as well!"

Ino and Sakura both gasped in horror. The disease was starting to spread more rapidly now and was infecting younger people. If they couldn't contain it soon the whole town could be wiped out and there was always the possibility it could spread to other towns.

Ino was about to follow the man to the new victims when one of the nurses came running out of the feudal lord's room.

"Sakura, Ino, please come quick," The nurse cried; a tone of desperation in her voice. "The lord is flat lining!"

xx

Off in the sound country Shino, Kiba, Hinata and Akamaru moved towards their next destination. With any luck they could make it to the next hidden lair before word got back to the sound that their scout had been killed.

"So what do we do if word has gotten to them already?" Hinata asked as they dashed through the trees, always being the worried one.

"We continue as planned," Shino responded. "We knew there was a possibility that something like this might happen. If there is increased security, we will just have to deal with it."

"But if we go and kill a ton of guards they may get worried and send more people out to find and eliminate us and completely our mission would become impossible," Kiba said. "Worse case, they may take our actions as a serious threat from Konoha and start something even more serious."

"Then we will just have to avoid killing any more sound nin we may encounter," Shino knew this might prove difficult, but it would be much safer to avoid as much combat as possible.

They all continued on now in silence, all deep in thought, playing out every possible scenario they may encounter in their heads. They had to be prepared for anything, whether it is fighting a battle against a large number of sound Shinobi, sneaking into a heavily guarded base without being detected or even fighting Sasuke himself.

As they moved forward, Kiba and Akamaru, who always lead the way in the front of the pack, stopped suddenly on a branch, signaling their teammates to stop as well. They both sniffed the air, trying to get a better sense of what the foreign smell was that had caused them to stop.

"I smell people, a lot of them," Kiba informed his teammates. "Hinata scan that way about a kilometer." Kiba pointed off in the direction the smell had originated.

Veins tightened on the side of Hinata's face as large amounts of chakra poured too her eyes, activating her byukagan. She looked far into the distance to where Kiba had told her to.

"There are twelve men there, they are surrounding the next base we were going to investigate," Hinata reported as her veins relaxed and her byukagan deactivated.

"Damn, looks like they found out what happened already," Kiba groaned.

"Not necessarily," Shino countered, "While it may be true they have gotten word of their man being killed, this may just be normal security. Although Sasuke himself may not be in this base it is possible that a large number of his men are using it as a sort of barracks or that he has some valuable information inside. Although the last base was abandoned, most likely many of the others will not be, as Sasuke has a large army and they may occupy bases he is not currently at."

"So what do we do with this base?" Kiba asked. "If there are twelve guards it will be very difficult to infiltrate it. And if what you say is true about the place be a barracks then not getting detected while inside will be even more difficult."

"Then we'll just have to be careful," Shino responded.

"I mean, is this even worth it? Why are we even doing this mission?" Kiba said, getting angry now. This mission was going to turn out being next to impossible if things kept on going the way they were.

"Because this mission is important to Naruto," Hinata replied, Kiba's worsening mood frightening her.

"Yeah but what does anyone gain from this? How do we even complete this mission?" Kiba said, bombarding his teammates with questions. "We can't just walk up to Sasuke and give him a scroll and walk away. We can't just give it to some random Sound ninja either, they would just destroy it when they realized it was packed with strange chakra. There isn't even a way to make sure that Sasuke is at any base. All the bases smell something like him, and if we get close enough to get a visual on him, he can detect us and we're screwed."

"Look, Kiba, we can't go through this every time you get a little discouraged," Shino said calmly, "This mission will be difficult but Naruto seemed confident that whatever he had planned would work, so when the time comes, we'll think of something."

Kiba took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He still didn't believe that this mission was actually possible, but he would do his best as long as his teammates didn't give up. "So then what are we going to do now?"

Later in that day, as night started to fall, Kiba, Akamaru, Shino and Hinata got ready to execute their plan. By this point, the number of guards had decreased to eight, one of the four man cells having gone back into the base, presumably to sleep. The two other four man cells that were currently keeping guard were not the same that they had seen earlier in the day, proving Shino's theory that this place was indeed a barracks or something of the sort of Sasuke's army.

The entrance to this particular base was not as well concealed as the other one had been, presumably because this one was currently in use. The two cells of men patrolled the area in wide arcs with at least two people at the entrance at all times. They had spent what had remained of daylight before forming their plan. Even though there was only a small chance that Sasuke was here they would still search the base and get any information they could. Their secondary objective on this mission was to gather any information they came upon when investigating. ANBU usually was the one that scouted for information but they were instructed not to infiltrate any bases as to not cause a disturbance, they usually observed from a distance.

Shino sat in his perch in a tree, starring down at the two guards protecting the entrance; a small cave. He listened intently to his headset, waiting for Kiba and Hinata to get into position. A small crackle into his ear a few seconds later signaled that they were ready and Shino made his move. Forming a few quick seals Shino instructed his bugs he had been methodically planting near the entrance to act. All at once they came up and swarmed the two guards quickly causing them to loose consciousness. With another few quick hand seals the bugs formed to create exact clones of the two guards they had just drained.

They had been observing the patrol patterns for most of the afternoon and had found an ideal opening of about a minute where the patrols were the greatest distance from the two entrance guards. In that minute they had to take out the two guards, hide their bodies in blind spots of the patrols route and get into the base.

Seeing what had happened Hinata and Kiba quickly jumped from their hiding spots and quickly dragged the bodies away. Shino walked up to his bug clones and inspected them making sure they looked passable. The entrance to the cave was blocked by a large slate of rock which based on their observations, could only be opened by certain people by using their chakra. These two guards were some of the few that could open the entrance. Shino ordered the bug clones to open the door using some of the enemy's chakra they had just sucked out.

Kiba and Hinata arrived back from hiding the unconscious body's right as the large slab of rock slid open. They had only used thirty of their sixty seconds so far, still plenty of time to get into the base undetected. Their plan was to have Kiba, Akamaru and Hinata enter the base and spread out and search the base while Shino would wait outside, controlling his bug clones and informing the ones inside if they had anything to worry about.

Their window quickly closing Kiba, Akamaru and Hinata entered the base. As soon as they were all in Shino ordered his bug clones to reseal the door. Content with how things were working so far Shino jumped back into the trees to a good vantage point. Even though he was left on the outside he wouldn't be clueless as to what was happening in the cave. He had planted several bugs on each of his teammates and could use their eyes to determine where his teammates were and what they were doing.

Inside the cave Kiba, Akamaru and Hinata stood in a small entrance way. It was a short hall very similar in appearance to the one they had seen in the previous base and after about ten meters lead into another one of the atriums. Of course they couldn't all just walk in looking the way they did so they all used a transformation technique to make their appearance something similar to the sound nin they had seen so far. Even though they looked like they belonged there now they would still have to do their best to avoid detection, as upon closer inspection it would be obvious to any real sound Shinobi that they weren't supposed to be there.

Having completed their transformations the three of them now walked into the atrium of the base. Unlike the other unoccupied base this one was very well lit by many torches lining the walls. They would have to be careful now as they couldn't use the cover of darkness to hide anymore. This atrium room wasn't different then the last as well. It forked into only two pathways and lining the walls of the circular room were several doors.

Using her Byukagan Hinata got a view of what was behind the doors. Like Shino had predicted there were a large number of men in each room, most sleeping. The doors had a much more advanced seal on them though and they wouldn't be able to force their way in. They would just have to search the hallways and report back.

Luckily everyone was in one of the rooms lining the circular room and there were none in the hallways. With any luck it would stay that way and they wouldn't have to deal with any enemies. Kiba motioned for Hinata that he would take the path on the left and she would take the one on the right. Akamaru was to stay back in the entrance way and inform them if anyone went down the halls towards them.

Kiba and Hinata both split and went their separate ways, making their ways down the torchlight lit halls. As they progressed down they found much the same thing they had found the previous time; many doors leading to more rooms, just this time many of them were occupied. It would be easy though to tell if Sasuke were in any of them, as Kiba knew his scent well and if he were in any of the rooms he would detect it easily. Hinata could also easily see Sasuke with her Byukagan, as his Sharingan caused him to have a very distinct chakra flow.

They both had to complete their searches in approximately fifteen minutes. The two guards would only remain at the door for that amount of time before two other would come and relieve them. If they were not back by them then Shino's clones wouldn't be able to open the door for them and they may be trapped inside.

Five minutes later Kiba and Hinata both made it to the end of their respective hallways. As same as before they both came to flat walls signaling a dead end. Kiba scanned the wall, checking if there was any way to open it without destroying it. Destroying it like he had before would be too noisy and would get him killed. Figuring it was too dangerous to go any further Kiba turned to head back. As he did a strange larger door, the last one on the right, caught his eye.

In the right hall Hinata came to the same conclusion about heading further and was about to head back when she too noticed a strange door, the last one on her left. She recognized it instantly; it was the same as the one to the lab she had gone into in the last base. Using her Byukagan she scanned the inside and saw the same thing she had seen before, the faint chakra glows of bodies being experimented on. As far as she could tell though, other then that, no one else was in the room. Would she really have to go back into another one of those horrifying labs? Deciding that it would hurt her more to miss important information in this room then seeing more dead bodies, Hinata pushed open the large door and entered the room.

On his side, Kiba bent down and sniffed the bottom of the door, trying to smell anyone that might be inside. There were some strange smells that came out but none of them smelled like a person. Kiba deliberated whether he should search the room. Maybe there could be some important information in this room. Slowly, Kiba pushed open the door, entering the strange room. He still had ten minutes to get back to the entrance; it wouldn't hurt to check for some more information.

As soon as Hinata entered the room her Byukagan caught someone entering a door on the other side of the lab. At first she started to panic until she realized who it was.

"Kiba…" Hinata whispered quietly into her communicator. "I see you on the other side of this room."

"Yeah, I see you too," Kiba whispered back as he entered the room, seeing Hinata's silhouette on the far side of the room. Apparently this room linked the two hallways together.

Hinata walked slowly into the room, starring in horror at the many giant tubes. Just like the last lab this place the tubes contained many horrifying bodies. Hinata held back a gasp; even though she had already seen bodies like these they still horrified her. Quickly she made her way past the many tubes towards the center of the room where Kiba was heading as well.

"Ew, these are disgusting," Kiba commented as he met Hinata in the center of the large room. As they met they came to a small computer terminal at the center of the room, obviously meant to control and monitor what happened in the tubes. "I wonder if we can learn anything from this." Kiba said as he hit a key on the computers keyboard, bringing up a password screen.

"Can you get passed it?" Hinata asked, keeping all her attention on the computer, keeping it off the many tubes.

"No, I don't know how to hack computers," Kiba replied, "I don't think guessing would work either, it would probably set off an alarm."

Now giving up on the computer the two quickly searched the remainder of the room looking for anything that may be useful.

"Hey, I found something," Kiba whispered excitedly as he found a lone piece of paper sitting in a printer tray. He looked at the many strange symbols on it but couldn't make out what it said. "I can't read it; I'll bring it with me."

Hinata nodded in agreement and Kiba pocketed the document.

"Hurry up," Shino whispered, "You only have five minutes left."

Kiba and Hinata both gave affirmative grunts and they both headed back to their respective doors. They had less then five minutes to make it back down the halls to the entrance. It had taken five minutes to get all the way down the hall so it would be close. Although now they could go faster as they didn't have to check each room.

As Kiba reached what he figured was the half way mark less then two minutes later Akamaru's voice hit his ears through his headset.

"Kiba, one guy coming down your way," Akamaru whispered in his half dog half human way he had to speak so Kiba could understand him through the headset. By this age Akamaru had learned to speak, although he avoided doing so when he didn't need too as a dog's vocal cords aren't meant to form those kinds of sounds.

Kiba bit his lip and swore to himself, this could end badly. He continued down the hallway at the same pace, now keeping an eye out for the enemy. Sure enough not twenty seconds later the enemy came into view. Kiba quickly slowed his pace to a brisk walk. He ducked his head and tried to act as normally as possible.

The man walked groggily down the hallway, obviously tired and heading back to his room. With any luck he wouldn't notice Kiba. As Kiba came within a meter of the guy he was about to breath a sigh of relief as he was about to pass the man but suddenly the man stopped.

"Who are you?" The man asked.

Kiba cursed to himself for getting caught. The man had taken a step back on was not about two meters away. If Kiba attacked the man he would most likely get a chance to react and call for help. He had to act and hope that the man didn't notice.

"I'm new here," Kiba responded, trying to keep his voice from wavering.

"Damn commanders always giving me new men without telling me," The man cursed. "Can I see your papers to verify it?"

Kiba cursed. He had thought for a second he would get away free but now things were turning bad.

"S-sure," Kiba stuttered as he reached into his pocket, pretending to get whatever the man had asked for. Kiba watched the guy as he took a step forward, and then another. He was now within half a meter.

Before the man could scream out Kiba's right hand was over his mouth. Simultaneously Kiba brought his left hand to the man's shoulder and held him there. Then in one swift movement Kiba snapped the man's neck as quickly and quietly as possible; slowly bringing the now limp body to the ground.

Kiba looked around frantically for somewhere to hide the body but there was nowhere, all the rooms where occupied. Deciding it didn't matter what he did with the body anyway Kiba abandoned it and broke out in a sprint down the hallway.

"We have to get out of here now," Kiba whispered frantically into his headset. "I just killed someone; we have to leave before they realize he's dead."

Kiba made it the rest of the way down the hallway, meeting Hinata just as she made it to the atrium as well. Akamaru was still waiting obediently in the entrance way, still in his transformed state.

"Shino, open the door," Kiba ordered into his headset.

Moments later the rock slab fell to the side and the three rushed out and jumped to where Shino was hidden.

"Did you find anything?" Shino asked.

"We'll talk about that later, we have to get out of here now," Kiba responded swiftly.

Shino nodded and formed a hand seal, causing the clones to break apart into the bugs they were made out of. Then forming another few hand seals Shino ordered his bugs to return just enough chakra to the guards they had knocked out earlier. They would wake up moments later with no memory of what happened, just a tad bit disoriented.

Having completed their plan, the four of them all took of into the night before any realized what had happened.

xx

"How unoriginal," Sasuke muttered to himself as he dropped into another cavern he had just uncovered.

As he landed on the damp stone floor, Sasuke quickly scanned the large, open cave. What he was looking for didn't take long to locate, its energy hard to not notice. Sasuke walked over to the small statue his prize was located on, examining it. The statue was rather small and completely unrecognizable, its features having been eroded away by the water.

Sasuke placed his hand on the small orb the statue held, marveling at how so much could be held in something so small.

_With this I can finally achieve my ambitions. _

"Shut up," Sasuke hissed, "You're not needed anymore."

Content with the results he had gotten from this unnecessary scavenger hunt; Sasuke pocketed the orb and jumped out of the cavern, heading back to the sound.

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Review! Please give me some feedback on what you like and don't like about this fic, I can take a little criticism, so please give me some!

I wasn't too pleased with how some of this chapter turned out although I'll make up for that with the next chapters because I have some good ideas :).


	8. Degrade

I wrote this chapter because I felt the last one took too long, so here it is! I think I may hold the next chapter hostage till I get around 10 reviews for this chapter (yeah I know, a lot right...). I don't think thats really too much to ask. If you read, review. I don't want to seem review crazy but I'd really just like to know that all the time I put into this isn't going to waste and that people are actually reading. I mean, I see other fics that have thousands of reviews and while mine isn't exactly that good, I still think it deserves at least a few reviews :).

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Chapter 7: Degrade 

"He's dead," Ino said grimly, "Call it."

Sakura's lips moved, but to Ino it didn't seem like any sound came out. She was exhausted. It was late at night now and she hadn't slept in days. Even given the circumstances right now she couldn't help but let her heavy eyelids droop and feel herself drift in and out of consciousness.

Earlier that day when the nurses had called them into the room in a panic the Feudal lord's vitals had been erratic and his heart was failing. It had taken all their energy just to keep him alive as long as they did and even then the Feudal Lord hadn't really been alive. Part way through their attempted rescue the man's brain shut down and he in essence became a vegetable. Even though the situation was beyond hopeless at that point the many people that had gathered in the room still wanted Ino and Sakura to try everything they could.

And finally, just moments ago, the old man finally died, with nothing Sakura or Ino could do to save him. A heavy gloom hung over the room when the lord finally checked out, feeling much the same way it had when the fifth had died.

Ino and Sakura both collapsed after seeing the grim ending. They both hadn't slept in days and had used more chakra then they thought they had had to try and save this man. They were both now completely overwhelmed both mentally and physically. Blood was spattered all over their cloths and both their bodies were trembling, being completely out of energy. They could feel the eyes of the many people in the room trained on them. Although the people knew deep down that their leader was dead even before the two medics had arrived, they still hated them for not saving him.

Even worse then the burden they were now carrying in the room was the knowledge of what was happening outside. While the two medics were working to save the Feudal lords life, news periodically came in, informing then that more and more people were falling sick out in the town. Now people of all ages were succumbing to the disease, old men and women, middle aged people and even children were now showing symptoms. By this point nearly forty people had become sick. It pained both Ino and Sakura to know that there were people outside of this room that they could actually be helping but couldn't because they were forced to help the 'more important' person.

Neither of the two young medics knew what to do now. Technically their mission was now over and they had failed. Their mission had only been to save the Feudal lord, and since he had died, their mission was now over. They knew though, that they couldn't leave. The circumstances had changed, they had an obligation to stay and try and save all these people, no matter how dangerous it may be.

But there was nothing they could do now anyway: they were both exhausted. Ino doubted she even had the energy to stand up anymore. Sakura was barely conscious. She hadn't eaten or drank anything since she had arrived, so not only was she exhausted from the exertion constant medical techniques put on the body, she was starved.

"What do we do now?" Ino asked, barely above a whisper.

"I-I need to sleep," Sakura responded, not even realizing she was talking.

Slowly, the two of them helped each other to their feet and made their way out of the room. The many people's gazes stayed on them, their loathing of the two women piercing through their barely conscious forms. The two sluggishly made their way to the rooms they had been allotted. Halfway through the short walk Sakura completely lost consciousness and Ino had to carry her the rest of the way to her room.

"Sakura wake up," Ino said, nudging the sleeping women to try and knock her back into consciousness. Even though Ino wished they could both just go to sleep now there were still a few things they had to discuss.

"What is it?" Sakura murmured as she came back to life, sitting up in the bed.

Knowing it would be impossible to carry on an intelligent conversation in their current state Ino reached into her pack and pulled out a few small pills, handing a couple to Sakura before eating the rest herself.

"What are these?" Sakura slurred as she examined the pills in her hand.

"They're food pills Chouji gave me," Ino responded relatively fluently, the affects of the pills already kicking in. "They'll give you a little more energy and help fill in some of the huge chakra deficit you have right now."

Sakura nodded in understanding and ate the two pills. After a few moments she slowly became more alert and shook off some of her tiredness.

"Okay, we have to talk," Ino continued, now completely alert. Of course the food pills had side effects to be able to give so much energy, but they would have to live with that.

"About what?" Sakura questioned gloomily, "We failed our mission."

"We have to decide what our next plan of action is," Ino replied.

"Well we only have two options," Sakura figured, "We can stay here and continue to try and cure this plague, or we can return to Konoha. Staying here much longer would be very dangerous though. The disease if being spread at a dangerous rate now and we still don't know how it's being spread and we both could easily catch it."

"That's true, but can we really just leave and let all these people suffer and die?"

"Well what can we do?" Sakura continued, "We have to think of this logically. At the rate this is spreading, within a week everyone here, including us, will be infected. We have had absolutely no progress coming up with a cure so far either. On top of that we have no clue as to how it is spreading. For all we know the disease could be dormant in all of us already and its just waiting to attack."

"So then we just have to figure out how it spread within a week," Ino concluded. "If we can't then we leave."

"You don't get it though," Sakura said, finally starting to think clearly now, putting together everything they knew about the current situation. "We have to think of this on a larger scale then just this town."

"You mean, you think that this disease will spread to other villages as well?" Ino gasped, she too, finally putting everything together.

"It's a possibility," Sakura continued. "We don't know how the disease is spreading. If someone from this village leaves to another, they could bring the disease with them and infect that village."

"So what do we do about that?" Ino asked, "We can't contain the disease if we don't know how it spreads. So far all we know is that it is apparently not spread through direct contact. Most likely it is also not being spread through the air either as then the people in closer proximity to the feudal lord and the first two who died would have become sick first."

"So then our only option may be a complete quarantine of this entire village," Sakura said, again coming to another conclusion.

"What do you mean by that?" Ino asked, slightly confused.

"We isolate everyone in the village here and prevent anyone from leaving or coming in," Sakura started. "But since it apparently is not spread through direct contact we also contain or destroy everything else that may be able to spread it: all the livestock, all the crops, all their resources that may be spreading this disease."

"Are you suggesting we destroy this entire town and just cut our losses?" Ino was shocked that Sakura was thinking this way, even if it was logically the best plan of action.

"We have to think on a larger scale," Sakura too was being conflicted by this, but she had to conceal her emotion so she could do what was best for everyone. "If we loose just this city it will be a tragedy, but if the disease spreads to other villages and maybe even to Konoha, it would be a catastrophe."

Ino bit her lip, knowing that Sakura was right and this was in all likelihood what they would have to do. "But what about us?"

"What about us?"

"Well we have been here, in contact with the disease the entire time. What do we do?" Ino asked, frightened of the answer she might get.

"Well if we may just have to accept our fate," Sakura responded grimly. "If we haven't caught the disease by the time we leave then best case scenario is we return to Konoha and stay in quarantine somewhere there until they know we aren't infectious and we don't have the disease. Worst case, we get the disease and die."

"Some good options we have," Ino muttered, realizing the gravity of their situation. "So what now?"

"Sleep," Sakura yawned, even with the huge amount of energy the food pill gave, she was still exhausted and needed sleep.

"Well, then you're gonna want to go to your own bed," Ino said, nudging Sakura off hers as she lay down.

"Lazy…" Sakura muttered, but Ino didn't hear, she was already fast asleep on her bed. With great effort, Sakura stood up from the edge of the bed and walked out of the small room, heading down the hall to her own room.

Just as Sakura was about to open the door and finally get some much needed sleep, the doctor came running up to her, a grim look on his face. Sakura groaned to herself, it seemed every time she had a free moment someone came running up to her to give even more bad news.

"Miss Sakura," The doctor gasped, "We just received word from a small village to the south, some of their people have fallen ill."

xx

Off in the sound country three people and one oversized dog rushed madly through the forest. They had been traveling for half an hour, not risking slowing down to discuss what had just happened. They had to be sure they were far enough away that they wouldn't be followed once the men in the sound base found out what had happened.

Figuring that they had traveled far enough, Shino stopped suddenly and signaled his teammates to do the same. He jumped higher into the tree they had stopped in with his teammates close behind, better concealing them all should an enemy pass by.

"What happened?" Shino asked his teammates.

"Well, I kind of killed someone," Kiba responded bluntly.

Shino had figured as much already. "Will they notice quickly? Did you hide the body?"

"Well unless a guy laying in the middle of the hall with a broken neck is normal," Kiba replied sarcastically, "I'm just gonna assume they are going to find out pretty soon,"

"You didn't hide the body?"

"There really wasn't time for that," Kiba had a feeling this conversation was going to end with him arguing with Shino like always, "Plus, all the rooms were full, there wasn't really anywhere to hide the body."

Shino groaned, at every stop Kiba managed to make this mission harder and harder. Although to give Kiba a little credit, he probably did handle that situation the best way possible. If he had reacted slower he would have gotten captured right there.

"Did you find anything of interest in the base?" Shino questioned, deciding to change the subject. They all knew what Kiba killing that guy would do for their mission; there was no need to discuss it.

"Well, it was like you said," Kiba answered, "The base seemed like a barracks or something of that sort for Sasuke's army. I'd say there were at least a couple of hundred of men in there and none of them Sasuke."

Shino, of course, had figured this as well. He just prayed that there weren't many more bases that were this densely populated. Not only would it make their mission much harder, but it was bad news for Konoha. If Sasuke had even a few more bases like this, his numbers would far surpass Konoha and he could overtake the village with overwhelming numbers. "Was there anything else noteworthy?"

Hinata responded this time. "We found another laboratory like the one I found at the last base." She cringed just at the thought of the morbid bodies suspended in the large tubes.

This did not surprise Shino either. Most of these bases had been constructed by Orochimaru and he had been known to conduct gruesome experiments. "Was there anything of interest in the lab?"

Kiba shuttered as he thought back to what he had just witnessed in the lab. He had more of a stomach for this sort of stuff then Hinata, but what he had seen in there, the decomposed bodies, flesh practically peeling off the bone, was enough to give even him nightmares. "It was disgusting. There were maybe eight tubes, each containing a body." Kiba had to pause for a second to recompose himself, the imagery becoming too much. "It was horrible. The bodies seemed like they were decomposed or something, like they had just been sitting there for years and years."

"Anything else?"

"There was a computer," Kiba continued. "We didn't have time to try and hack it but it most likely just held data from the experiments they run in there." Kiba paused again, trying to think of anything he had forgotten. "Oh, and there was this." Kiba reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, the printout he had found in the lab.

Shino took the paper and examined it, looking over the many strange symbols and markings.

"Do you think you can break it?" Kiba asked hopefully. He was personally no good at stuff like that, but Shino was the kind of calm and intelligent guy that had the patience to figure out something like this.

Much to Kiba's dismay, Shino shook his head, unable to decode what the paper said. "If I had more time maybe I could crack it, maybe if I had some idea where to start or an idea of what the message might say. But we simply do not have enough time and for all we know these markings could just be the printer printing nonsense."

"So you think its garbage?" Kiba asked, disappointed that their only possible lead so far may turn out to be nothing.

"I didn't say that," Shino replied, getting annoyed at how quickly Kiba would jump to the worst conclusion so quickly. "I said that there was a possibility it may be nothing. Based on the setup of this page though I'd say it most likely is some type of message. There are definitely patterns to how the symbols are arranged, it's just that it's too complicated to solve without having some sort of key."

"So what do you think it says then?" Kiba asked.

"Well based on the fact that you found it in a lab I assume its some sort of data printout or analysis," Shino replied. "But since they went to the effort to develop such a complex code to hide the information it may be something important."

"So we should definitely try and solve-"

"Kiba, don't get too distracted by this," Shino reprimanded. "It most likely isn't anything to important if it was just left lying around. We'll bring it back to Konoha when we have to chance to let someone there try and break it but until then don't get hung up on it; we have to concentrate on our mission"

"Yeah…" Kiba was still curious as to what the document said, but there was nothing they could do about it now. He would just have to wait; they had more important things to attend to. "So what now then? We haven't gotten any clues yet and they are going to be on high alert now that we've killed two of their men. Jumping from base to base it too dangerous now, so what are we going to do?"

The team turned silent now, deep in thought. It was true that searching bases individually like they had been doing was next to impossible now. Even though the last base they had searched did have some security it was still surprisingly lax, from now on security would most likely be much, much tighter.

"We have to get information," Shino said after much thought. "We should head to the nearest town and see if there is any information we can get from the townspeople. We should try and avoid contact with the enemy for as long as possible so that they might lighten security again."

"So where is the nearest town?" Hinata asked, deciding to enter the conversation.

Shino reached into his bag and pulled out his map, laying it out on the branch. "We're here now," Shino started, pointing to a point near one of the red marks they had used to mark the location of the known bases. "That means the nearest town is this one here, about five kilometers to the east," Shino continued pointing to a small town labeled on the map.

"Okay, let's get going then," Kiba exclaimed, anxious to get moving again.

The four of them arrived on the outskirts of town not too much later. They had discarded all items that could mark them as outsiders: their forehead protectors, jounin vests, weapon pouches and hid them in a hole Akamaru had dug so they could retrieve them later. They wanted to keep as low a profile as possible and if they walked into the town looking like three Konoha Shinobi and a giant dog, they may just stick out a little.

As soon as they entered the town they realized even without all their ninja attire they still stuck out like a sore thumb. The town was a dump. All the houses and structures were a wreck, dilapidated and falling apart. Trash and rubble was strewn about carelessly in the streets, no one caring to pick it up. Most of the windows were boarded up or broken, the glass still lying precariously on the ground below.

The people were just as a mess as the town. The few that were in the street wore dirty and torn clothing, seeming as if they had worn the same thing day in and day out for years. Their faces and exposed skin were caked with dirt and grime. No one smiled; they had nothing to smile about.

The smell was awful as well. Kiba could barely stand it and tried to draw as much chakra as possible away from his nose to dull the sense, which was hard since it had become such a habit to always keep his sense of smell strong. The whole town smelled like sewage, the rank smell covering everything.

As the three of them walked through the town (Akamaru had to wait on the outskirts as he would draw too much attention) they drew stares from the townspeople. People stopped what little they were doing to gawk at the strange looking intruders. They examined their strange, clean clothing and odd overall appearances.

Unconsciously Hinata moved herself closer to Kiba, the many stares making her uncomfortable. Kiba gritted his teeth, still trying to get the terrible smell out of his nostrils. Shino cautiously moved forward, still aware and alert of any dangers that may wait for them in the town.

"This place is disgusting," Kiba grumbled, still peeved by the smell. "Are all the villages in the sound like this? How did a place manage to become this disgusting anyway?"

It wasn't long before Kiba got his answer. As they walked farther down the street they came to a disturbing scene. Four men dressed in familiar sound outfits strode down the street, the inhabitants of the small town running back into their homes in fear as the men passed. One unlucky soul failed to notice the thugs and was promptly beaten to the ground.

Kiba, Shino and Hinata made their way into an alleyway not wanting to draw any attention from the approaching sound ninja. Luckily the sound ninja passed by the alleyway, not giving a second look to the three leaf nin huddled in the narrow pathway. The four men continued down the street a while longer, abusing anyone who came in their way before entering a small bar further down the road.

The three leaf nin inched out of the alleyway and cautiously made their way to the bar the sound Shinobi had entered. Not wanting to risk getting detected they didn't enter into the bar as well but instead peered in though the slits the boarded windows left open.

Inside the four men stood in front of the bar, yelling at a terrified bartender. Apparently the bartender owed them money but since the entire town was so poor he didn't have enough. The sound nin didn't try much to conceal their anger and made a scene in the small bar, breaking stools and tables, throwing glasses dangerously close to the bartenders head.

"Who the hell do those overgrown academy students think they are, walking into someone's bar and destroying it like that?" Kiba growled as he continued to watch the scene. "That's it, we have to stop those people," Kiba continued as a glass finally collided with the bartenders head.

"Don't," Shino ordered firmly, grabbing Kiba's arm, preventing him from entering the bar. "We can't make a scene here."

Kiba growled lowly but complied, settling back down to continue looking through the slit.

After about ten more minutes of this, with the bar completely in shambles, the four men left, finally growing bored of destroying the bar and asking for the money they knew the bartender couldn't possibly have.

Shino, Kiba and Hinata snuck back into the alley as the sound Shinobi stormed out of the bar, heading back the way they came. After they passed the three Konoha Shinobi snuck back out of the alley and looked back into the bar, watching the distraught bartender futilely try to repair his bar. Kiba, sick of just watching the man suffer, started to walk towards the entrance.

"Kiba, what are you doing?" Shino asked.

"Well he seems to have interactions with sound Shinobi," Kiba observed, "Maybe talking to him would be a good place to start."

Shino and Hinata nodded, agreeing with Kiba's plan and the three of them walked into the destroyed bar.

The bartender was still shaking from the incident and was slowly making his way around the bar picking up broken pieced of glass and splinters of the wooden stools. When he noticed the three relatively well dressed people walk into his bar he wobbly got to his feet and fumbled around looking for something to sell to them, hoping to make at least a little money.

"I'm sorry, we had sort of an incident here, we're closed," the bartender said.

"Yeah, we saw what happened," Kiba replied, "What the hell were those guys' problems?"

"It's no big deal," the bartender mumbled in response, an obvious lie. "They do that all the time."

"What did you do to owe them money?" Shino asked.

"Nothing really, they say it's a protection tax. I've had to pay those sound ninja ever since that devil took over our town," the bartender responded.

"That devil? You mean Sasuke?"

"Yeah," the bartender replied quietly, "But its best not to talk about him, people have been known to disappear that talk negatively about him."

"Figures that asshole Sasuke would do something like that," Kiba grumbled.

"Please don't talk about him like that, I'm in enough trouble already," The bartender reprimanded, glancing around nervously hoping that none of Sasuke's men were around to hear this conversation.

"Sorry, he won't do that anymore," Shino assured before moving on to why they were there, "The reason we are here though is we need information."

Seeing an opportunity to maybe earn some much need the money, the bartended smirked, "And how much are you willing to pay for this information?"

"Hey, you don't even know what information we need, how can you go and ask for money for information you don't have," Kiba barked, annoyed by the man's quick change in mood.

"Hey, I just need to make some money," the man replied, "If you haven't noticed this town doesn't have much money."

"We're not paying you for information," Kiba growled. Being a Shinobi wasn't exactly a lucrative job, and he'd prefer not to spend his hard earned money on possibly non existent information.

"Then you won't get any information," The man smirked back, using his leverage.

"We'll pay you," Shino interrupted, "But only if you have information on Sasuke's whereabouts."

The bartender became serious again, "Now why would you want to know that?"

"We're looking for him, we're some old friends," Kiba replied.

"It'll cost you, though," the bartender replied, barely above a whisper, not wanting to get in trouble for giving away the information he was about to.

"You know where he is?" Kiba asked, excited and surprised that a bartender in a ruined town like this would know Sasuke's location.

"I do if you pay me."

"Fine," Kiba growled, pulling a few coins from his pocket and placing them on the counter, "Now tell us where he is."

xx

Back in Konoha in a house on the outside of a town, a lazy genius groaned as he rolled out of bed, throwing on a pair of pants before heading for the kitchen. It was morning now and Shikamaru had to get back to work, having spent most of the last day sleeping, among other things.

In the kitchen Shikamaru threw a pot of water on the stove to boil and started making himself a small breakfast.

"You weren't planning on leaving again without telling me, where you?" Temari asked, walking into the kitchen wearing only one of Shikamaru's robes.

"Don't worry I just came here to make us some breakfast," Shikamaru reassured her.

"Good," Temari said as she sat down at the kitchen table, watching the lazy man cook breakfast.

Things remained silent while Shikamaru finished making breakfast, Shikamaru putting all his concentration on not burning the eggs like he always did and Temari sitting complacently at the table, waiting for her breakfast. The silence continued as Shikamaru finished cooking and brought the eggs as well as some tea over for them to eat.

Shikamaru was the one to break the silence, looking over at the blond sitting across from him after he finished his eggs. "So when are you going to be leaving?"

"Want to get rid of me that bad?" Temari sneered, although she knew Shikamaru didn't mean it that way.

"I didn't mean it that way," Shikamaru assured her. "It's just that you've just kind of been hanging around here for a while. I thought you were supposed to only be here for a day to get that treaty signed and then head back. Won't Garra get mad if he knew you were just staying here just for me?"

"Garra won't mind, I'll just tell him things got backed up here and it took a while for your Hokage to get to it," Temari responded. "Would it really hurt if I stayed here a couple extra days?"

"I guess not, although I'm not the one who's going to have to answer to Garra," Shikamaru laughed.

After cleaning up after himself and the women currently staying in his apartment, Shikamaru quickly went back to his room to finish getting dressed before getting ready to head back to the Hokage's tower to work.

"I've got to go now, I'm kind of behind in work now," Shikamaru informed the sand women.

"Okay," Temari responded softly.

Shikamaru headed to the door but turned back right before leaving, sensing something was wrong. Whenever Temari was in town she usually only came for a day or two and it had been many more then that already. She had also seemed unusually quite this morning as well.

"Shikamaru, before you go there is something I have to tell you," Temari started.

"What is it?" Shikamaru asked, "I have to get going soon."

"You don't always have to act like you're in such a rush to get away," Temari scoffed.

"Sorry, it's just that I'm kind of late," Shikamaru apologized. "So what is it?"

"I'm not sure I want to tell you anymore," Temari said, deciding to annoy Shikamaru a little.

"I'm late, if you don't tell me now you'll have to wait till I get back," Shikamaru said, getting annoyed.

"I bet it would start eating at you if you don't learn now," Temari mocked.

"I think I can handle going a day without knowing what you have to tell me."

"Then why haven't you left yet?"

"I was just going to," Shikamaru finally said, opening the door and stepping outside.

"Shikamaru, I'm pregnant."

* * *

So hope you're liking it. Remember, next chapter won't be up anytime soon unless I get something around 10 reviews! So...Review! 

The fun's gonna start soon (and that's not a good thing for our Konoha friends!).

And sorry if anything was a little cliche, hopefully the direction I'm going to take with this is going to be different then what you normally see.


	9. Changeover

Sorry this took so long. I was busy and rather unmotivated. Shorter chapter as well, although it is eventful, so that should make up for its length.

* * *

Chapter 8: Changeover 

Shikamaru stood frozen in the door, trying to process the information he had just heard. He'd been called a genius all his life, always being able to analyze a situation instantly. But now, his mind had frozen, for the first time in his life he couldn't think of anything.

"W-what," Shikamaru stuttered, thinking he had heard wrong.

"I'm. Pregnant." Temari repeated, slowly so that the so called genius could process the information.

"H-how did that happen?" Shikamaru stammered, his mind not working completely.

"Well see, it's not that complicated. A man sticks his…"

"I know, I know. It's just, is it…mine?" Shikamaru asked quietly.

"Who else's would it be?"

"Bu-Bu-Bu…" Shikamaru continued to stammer, unable to form a complete sentence.

"Are you sure you're a genius?" Temari joked, amused by Shikamaru's reaction to this news.

"Yeah. But. Uh, what are you going to do?" Shikamaru asked.

"I don't know, that's kind of why I told you. Maybe that big brain of yours could think of something." Temari answered.

"Have you told Gaara or anyone else yet?" Shikamaru questioned. He had come back into the house now and closed the door; going back and sitting down at the table.

"No," Temari responded, quietly now. She had only found out a couple of days before she had left and wasn't quite sure how she felt about it yet. Presumably it had happened the last time she had come to Konoha about a month and a half ago, although she couldn't be absolutely positive; she had made it a habit of visiting Konoha as often as possible.

To Temari, it felt sort of strange being scared of telling your brother, your younger brother at that, that you're pregnant. She wasn't quite sure how he would react. It was of course, a pretty normal thing for a woman to get pregnant. Maybe he would be mad that she wouldn't be able to go on missions for a while, as she was one of the strongest in the village and she was often relied on to do some of the toughest missions. What Temari thought Gaara would be angriest about was the fact that the father was someone from another Shinobi village. It was considered rather taboo to have a relationship with someone from a separate village; as if something went wrong between the two villages it would be a bad thing to have contradicting about what side you wanted to be on.

Of course Temari would tell Gaara eventually. He would find out whether she told him or not. She just wanted to tell the father first and get his reaction. So far Shikamaru's reaction had been rather neutral; he didn't seem angry or happy about the news.

After a long awkward silence Shikamaru stood up from the table and headed for the door again.

"You're leaving already?" Temari asked, sort of surprised Shikamaru would leave so quickly after hearing this kind of news.

"Yeah, I have to get the Hokage's tower to work, I'm late as it is," Shikamaru replied, trying to avoid eye contact with Temari as he didn't want to get persuaded into staying longer.

"Well, I kind of though you would stay a little longer and help me think through this."

"Sorry, I really can't, I have to go now," Shikamaru said back quickly, trying to get out as quick as possible. "I'll try to think of something while I'm gone."

Temari sighed; Shikamaru was really such an idiot when it came to relationships. "I'll probably be gone when you get back. I've stayed to long as it is; I just needed to tell you."

"Oh," Shikamaru said as he finally opened the door and prepared to leave. "Well then I guess I'll see you some other time. Be safe."

Shikamaru was gone now, the door swinging shut behind him, leaving a silent Temari behind him. Temari sat at the table still, contemplating what to do now. She figured she should gather the few things she had brought and head back, although she really had hoped that Shikamaru had thought of some grand solution to this problem, although she knew there was none and cursed herself for calling this a problem.

Looking down at her still flat stomach, fingering around her navel, Temari stood up and prepared to leave. She wondered where her life would go from here; she had never really planned on something like this happening. But more then that, she wondered what the being inside her would be like, and what its future held.

xx

"This is disgusting," Ino murmured, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth and nose. The scene in front of her and Sakura was grotesque. The disease had spread and in an effort to contain the disease they had moved all the sick people into a few of the open wards in the Hospital. But the wards had filled up quickly, the sick people overflowing from the cramped rooms.

Now Ino and Sakura stood starring into one of these overcrowded wards, trying their best not to gag on the horrid stench. The rooms twenty beds had filled up almost instantly once the spread of the disease had exploded. In the twenty beds lay twenty sickly people, their flesh rotting, vomit and blood covering the previously white sheets. When the beds had all filled up, cots and mats were brought in to accommodate the new cases that were constantly flowing in. Now there were more then fifty people in the room meant for twenty and only a few nurses and doctors to tend to them; as many of them had fallen ill as well.

Luckily Sakura and Ino remained in relatively good shape. They were both completely exhausted from being so overworked and were famished, as the only thing they had dared to eat this entire time were rations they had brought. But neither of them had contracted the disease and were for the most part, sane.

Right now, there were currently almost completely out of options. Like they had planned, they had spent every waking moment looking for the source of the disease but had found nothing. It was impossible to locate something that they couldn't even see with a microscope. The only sure way to locate the source would be to conduct an experiment with healthy people to determine where the disease from but not only was that morally wrong but there were very few healthy people left.

They had also received word from other villages that the disease had spread there as well. As of right now there was nothing they could do for them, as they had to concentrate on this village, as it was hit the hardest so far. But if they couldn't contain this disease now, it could soon spread to the entire fire country—even Konoha. Running out of ideas the two medics had set a timeline. If they couldn't locate the source or cure this disease in three hours, they would quarantine the town and stop anything from coming in or out of the village in a hope it would stop the disease, or at least slow it down.

The morgue would soon be overflowing when the disease hit full swing in all these sick people. So far it seemed as if it took a couple of days for the disease to kill someone; possibly a little longer in a younger, otherwise healthier person.

After a few more moments of starring at this morbid scene, Ino finally reached her limit and walked out of the room, heading back to the lab where she had previously been working. She had tested just about everything she could think of and had come up with nothing. Sakura had joined her in the lab as well to test everything else and also work to find a cure, although her attempts had so far proven just as futile.

"The tissue and blood from the cows have turned up nothing," Sakura said grimly, as she finished up some tests after they both had arrived back at the lab. A foreboding gloom hung over the room as the two continued to test and retest everything.

The two remained silent for a while now, going about their work. After retesting a sample of some crop from the fields of the village, Ino slumped back into a chair and took a deep breath, looking over at Sakura. "So where do you think this came from?" Ino asked.

"If we knew that we wouldn't be here testing everything," Sakura grumbled.

"That's not what I meant," Ino spat back, sensing the patronizing tone Sakura had used, "I mean where do you think this disease came from originally? Did it evolve from some other animal disease or is it some man made bacteria?"

Sakura sat down now too, giving up on her current specimen for the time being. She hadn't thought much about things from this perspective yet, as she had been too busy just trying to find out a cure. "Well from what we have seen so far it seems like it would be manmade. There are no known bacteria that occur naturally that are this small and that we wouldn't be able to combat. But is its manmade that means…"

"Exactly," Ino interrupted, "It means that someone spread this disease in the hope that it would cause an epidemic like this."

"But who would want to do something like this?" Sakura wondered, "What would someone gain by destroying a town like this? As far as I know this town had no enemies or rivals, there isn't much anyone would gain by its destruction."

"So then maybe their true goal was something else," Ino continued, "Maybe they planned on having the disease spread and…"

Ino stopped suddenly, her eyes going blank, a light sweat breaking out.

"Ino, are you okay?" Sakura asked worriedly.

Ino didn't respond, she just continued to stare blankly forward.

"Ino?" Sakura said, getting up and walking over to her oddly acting friend.

Again, Ino didn't respond. She remained silent still, starring straight at the wall. Gradually she started to tremble, her whole body shaking.

"Ino!"

With one more large convulsion Ino vomited, spraying blood and bile all over the lab floor before collapsing out of her chair and sprawling out on to the floor.

"Ino!" Sakura yelled out in horror, bending over, trying to shake her friend out of her current state.

Ino remained unresponsive still, breaking out in a cold sweat on the ground, her shake worsening.

"Ino, please don't do this," Sakura begged. She prayed that this was exhaustion. Quickly, Sakura checked Ino's vitals and removed the large lab coat she had been wearing so she could get a better idea of what was wrong.

"Oh no," Sakura gasped as she looked down at Ino's no exposed stomach. On her stomach was a dim red rash, slowly spreading to the rest of her body.

"Ino!"

xx

Off in the sound country, Kiba, Hinata, Akamaru and Shino move quickly and silently through the trees, heading towards where the bartender has just informed them that Sasuke is.

"Sasuke better be there or I'm going to kill that bartending bastard," Kiba grumbled, "I gave him practically a months pay for that information."

"Well it is the only lead we have, at the least I'm sure we will turn up something useful at this base," Shino replied, hoping his teammate didn't throw another fit.

"How can you be so sure," Kiba barked back, "He seemed pretty desperate for money, he could have easily just given us random coordinates and stolen our money. Well, _my _money. You guys should really reimburse me for some of that; I shouldn't have to be the only one that suffers to get information."

"Hinata, can you search a kilometer ahead and see if anything unusual is there," Shino said, changing the subject.

Hinata nodded and activated her Byukagan, scanning ahead of them. If the coordinates they had received were correct, then the base should be close, although it was not one that had had marked on their map and they had no reconnaissance pictures so finding it could prove to be difficult.

"No, there is nothing unusual," Hinata replied after thoroughly scanning much of the area and finding nothing abnormal.

"Keep an eye out for anything-" Shino started to say.

"Hey! Don't change the subject!" Kiba growled, "I think you guys should pay me some for being able to get this information."

"According to the bartenders information the base should be about a half a kilometer to the east of here," Shino continued, ignoring his aggravated teammate. "Keep quite and be cautious."

"Hey! Stop changing the subject!" Kiba yelled, infuriated by Shino's behavior.

Again Shino ignored him. He had said to be quite and he didn't intend on being the one that disobeyed his own command.

"I see something," Hinata whispered suddenly, coming to a stop on the nearest branch. "About three hundred meters east there is a strange mound of dirt concealed between several trees."

Kiba and Shino both strained to see what Hinata was talking about but couldn't get a line of site because of the dense foliage. Now, letting Hinata lead the way, the four moved very cautiously towards what hopefully would be the entrance to Sasuke's current location.

After several torturously slow moving minutes, the four finally arrived at the strange mound of dirt, examining it from a safe distance.

"It seems pretty abandoned," Kiba commented after not being able to locate any guards or pick up any strange scents.

"It's possible that he's not here anymore," Shino said, "The bartender said that he had heard some of the sound nins talking about this place about a week ago, that leaves plenty of time for him to leave if he really was ever here at all."

"That bartender better pray that something is here or else I'll beat him up worse then those sound nin did," Kiba mumbled, getting disapproving looks from both his teammates and even Akamaru.

"There does appear to be an entrance," Hinata said, interrupting Kiba's rant, "There are no traps on it, it just appears to be a wooden door in the mound."

"We should approach this cautiously," Shino said, "There is still a chance that Sasuke is here, we can't risk being detected by him."

"Okay, then let's get searching," Kiba exclaimed excitedly, hoping that this seemingly impossible mission may actually end in success. Although he still feared the worse, they would find nothing and he would be out a good portion of his money.

The four jumped down from the tree and approached the entrance. The mound of dirt was about as tall as any one of them and sure enough under a thin layer of leaves laid a simple wooden door. Shino slowly approached the door and pulled it open, revealing a long ladder leading down to a cave below.

"You guys owe me for this," Kiba said, still unhappy about his teammate's unwillingness to compensate him. Again he got no response from his teammates but was too excited to really care at the moment. Without another moment of delay, Kiba jumped down into the dark cave below, followed soon after by his teammates.

xx

Not to far off in the sound country, the cruel dictator of these lands rapidly made his ways through the many trees, heading back to his previous base. He was content with how things had turned out with his little expedition and just hoped that everyone else had gone according to plan while he had been away.

As he drew closer to his destination, Sasuke let his hand glide over the object in his pouch, the reward for all his hard searching and research. While he wasn't quite sure if all that effort would pay off in the end, the thought of what could happen if it did was enough to make _all _of him content for the moment.

_This takes us one step closer to our ambitions._

"Shut up," Sasuke demanded, still remaining calm though. Why did that bastard have to be so annoying? He was useless now, he should go away and rot like the piece of trash he is.

_I wouldn't tell me to shut up; I'm more apart of-_

"Shut up," Sasuke repeated again, still calm. The annoyance didn't have time to respond, Sasuke had repressed it with an overwhelming amount of chakra.

Now temporarily free of any interruptions, Sasuke finally arrived at his destination, jumping down from the trees he had been traveling on; landing next to the entrance of his current home.

xx

"We should split up again," Shino said, observing the four main passage ways that lead off of the main atrium that had landed in.

Kiba and Hinata both nodded and wordlessly chose which pathway they would choose. Shino took the one straight ahead, Kiba the one to the right, Akamaru the one behind them and Hinata the one to the left.

More cautiously then ever before, each of the four made their way slowly down their respective hallways; their senses heightened as much as possible. Although the place seemed to be abandoned they still moved slowly and alertly; it would be just like Sasuke to have his own base, not wanting to surround himself with people he considered weak.

Much like the other bases, each hall was lined with door which opened to abandoned rooms and closets. The place seemed completely deserted, almost more so then the first base they had searched.

Kiba groaned quietly as he reached the end of his hallway, finding absolutely nothing: no information, no clues, no Sasuke.

Hinata as well had reached the end of her hallway. Much like Kiba she had found absolutely nothing, although unlike Kiba she was partially glad she didn't. She had always feared Sasuke, she didn't know what she would do if she came face to face with him as an enemy.

Shino too came to the end of his hallway, finding nothing unusual. Shino carefully examined the dead end he had come to before concluding there was nothing. While he was disappointed that his search had turned up nothing, he knew if Kiba's turned up nothing as well he wouldn't hear the end of how he had to waste his money for useless information and how they now owed him money.

Back in his hallway, a depressed Kiba examined the end wall, trying to determine if there was anything behind it. After a few minutes he came to the conclusion that he truly was at a dead end and breathed a deep sigh of disappointment. He had really hoped that this would lead somewhere, but it seemed like they weren't any closer to completely their mission then they ever were. "I'm heading back now," Kiba whispered into his headset, "Nothing to report here."

Hinata, coming to the same conclusion, turned to go back as well. "Nothing to report here either."

"Nothing here," Shino repeated, also starting to head back.

In his hallway, Akamaru had also made his way to the end, nothing unusual there either. "Nothing," he said plainly into the custom headset he had had made for him. He too now headed back towards the atrium.

"You guys owe me," Kiba whispered into his headset, disappointed with the results of their search. He walked back slowly to the atrium, head hanging low with disappointment.

Suddenly, Kiba stopped in his tracks. This smell… Where was it? Behind him? How?

"Long time no see…Kiba, right?"

Slowly, Kiba turned to face the source of the voice. "You're…"

"Is there a reason you are standing next to the door to my room?"

"Sasuke…"

* * *

Well, hoped you liked it. Tell me what you think. 


	10. Fear

A/N: Sorry for the wait, I was busy and my computer has been crapping out. This chapter is slightly shorter as well so again, I'm sorry. Thank you everyone that reviewed so far. Last chapter actually got into the double digits for reviews which is the first time happening for any of my fics XD. Keep the reviews coming please, they make me more motivated to write and get chapters out quicker.

* * *

Chapter 9: Fear

"Are you okay?"

Sakura nodded, not looking away from Ino. The town's head doctor stood behind her, looking on as well. He was one of the only ones that had not fallen ill yet, although Sakura could sense by the waiver he often had in his voice that he was scarred he would be taken soon. Sakura and the doctor had pulled some strings to get Ino her own room in the hospital so that Sakura could take better care of her. Many of the townspeople would had not gotten sick yet weren't happy with this, as they still thought she had done nothing and that she shouldn't be receiving any special treatment.

Ino lay in the clean white bed, a cold sweat perspiring form her brow and a red rash developing on her chest. Sakura had hooked up sensors to her body to track her vitals but beyond that there wasn't much more she could do at the current moment. Although Sakura wanted to help her friend she also had almost a whole village of sick people to help as well so she couldn't give all her attention to Ino.

"Can you come get me if she wakes up?" Sakura asked, turning to leave the room.

"Sure," The doctor responded. He had asked several of his nurses to check up on Ino from time to time so that they would know her condition. Ino also had a buzzer in the room so that if she did wake up she could page him.

Sakura was out of the room now, in the hallway walking towards where most of the other diseased people were. While she was worried about Ino, she couldn't let the worry overwhelm her. She just hoped that Ino would be able to regain enough consciousness to at least speak. Ino had only been here for a short time and if Sakura could learn of everything Ino had been in contact with while here she could get a better clue of where the disease came from. She just hoped that none of the villagers would do anything to prevent Ino from speaking to her. While Sakura trusted to doctor and some of the nurses, many of the townspeople were still rather disgruntled and could be liable to try and harm Ino if their frustrations boiled over.

For the next hour Sakura went about mechanically taking care of patients. While she was doing everything she could to help, all of her efforts were starting to become futile. In reality she was just putting on a show. In a few hours she would have to enact a total quarantine and all these people would die. Konoha had already been notified of what was happening and they had sent a few men to help keep quarantine, although only a few, as Konoha did not want to loose any more Shinobi if possible.

But what about Ino? Sakura had been thinking about this the most. Now that Ino was infected they couldn't bring her back to Konaha. Sakura wondered what would become of Ino now. She didn't want to leave her friend behind but she wondered if she would have any choice. Bringing Ino's body out would be breaking quarantine and would not be allowed. Ino's only hope was Sakura creating a cure, and fast.

So in between rounds checking all the sick people Sakura would go to the lab and recheck everything, looking for any sign of something strange. So far nothing had turned up though. Sakura was starting to feel desperate. More and more people were becoming sick every minute and news was coming from a town close by that several people were becoming sick there as well. On top of that Ino was sick and if she didn't wake up within the next few hours then Sakura wouldn't be able to get any information from her or talk to her ever again.

So Sakura continued to work, all these thoughts constantly in the back of her head. She and Ino had both agreed that if they could not locate or cure the disease in three hours then they would enact quarantine; it was now two hours after they had set that time line. Still Sakura had made no progress on curing the disease and Ino still remained unconscious. A couple more of the nurses had fallen ill so now it was just Sakura, the doctor and the few remaining nurses that had to take care of hundreds of dieing people.

"Is he going to be okay?"

"We're doing everything we can, if you could just wait outside we will keep you up to date on his condition." Sakura replied, motioning for the women to leave. This had become a common scene. Many of the still healthy people knew at least one person who had become sick and would come in and ask if Sakura could give them any special help or inquire about their condition. Sakura always had the same reply, there was really nothing more she could do for the people.

The women nodded dolefully and trudged away, heading back into the now packed waiting room. At the current moment, just about everyone in the town was in the hospital, either because they were sick or because they were worried about someone who was.

As the women disappeared around a corner the doctor appeared, jogging briskly towards Sakura. This too had become a common scene. It seemed every other minute another person would become sick or they would receive word that someone from another village had fallen ill as well. Sakura had started to hate the site of the man, his presence always bringing it with it bad news.

"Miss, Sakura," The doctor said, trying to catch his breath.

"What is it?" Sakura asked gloomily, fearing even more bad news.

"Ino has regained consciousness."

xx

Kiba stood paralyzed, starring at the man in front of him. The man they had been searching for, the objective of their mission. Sasuke. He wore a white robe loosely over his shoulders and carried with him a sword on his back. Kiba had not seen this person face to face since they had been twelve but he was sure he was him. There was no mistaking it, the slick black hair, the seemingly nonchalant expression and the horrifying red eyes. Kiba even recognized his scent, even though it was a smell he hadn't sensed in many years.

Kiba instinctively took a defensive position, ready for any attack. Shino, Hinata and Akamaru should be coming soon. They should have heard Sasuke through his headset and would be coming to his aid. Kiba's mind was working slow now. He had to think of something. He couldn't just sit here and wait for Sasuke to kill him. And if he fought Sasuke he would most likely end up dieing. While he had never actually fought the Uchiha, he had stories of his strength and those were enough to let him no that even though he was strong, there was no way he could stand up to someone like Sasuke.

So Kiba wracked his brain, trying to think of something that could get him out of this situation alive. But he couldn't think of anything other then hoping that his team showed up and that together they could do something. But then something hit him. That scroll Naruto had given them all, he could use that! While he wasn't quite sure what it was, surely something so packed with Naruto's chakra would be able to help him. Even though Shino had come to the conclusion it wasn't a summoning scroll, Naruto had shown some intelligence in recent years; he could of easily come up with a new type of summoning scroll. It made sense that it was something like that, Naruto was most likely one of the only people in the world that could stand up to Sasuke, this mission was probably meant so that Naruto could fight him again and a summoning scroll would be the quickest way for Naruto to get here. So Kiba reached back to his pouch to take out the scroll, but...

"Are you looking for this?" Sasuke asked, lifting up his hand that had been covered over with his long robe, revealing all of Kiba's weapon holsters. "And don't could on getting support." Sasuke continued, revealing the headset Kiba had been wearing, which had been sliced cleanly in two, rendering it useless.

Kiba watched in horror as Sasuke held all of his weapons right in front of his face. Kiba had known Sasuke was strong but he didn't know he was _this_ strong. He had been able to not only sneak up on Kiba so quickly that Kiba hadn't been able to smell him but he had also been able to disarm Kiba completely without the Inuzaka so much as feeling a tap.

"W-when did you," Kiba stuttered, not knowing what else to say. He was completely out of his league against Sasuke. He was completely out of ideas now. His teammate's had no idea he was in trouble and he was weaponless. He stood paralyzed now. He was afraid to move. He was afraid that if he moved so much as a muscle Sasuke would cut him down in an instant. This is something that had never happened to Kiba in all his years of being a Shinobi. He had been in many situations where had had fought people that were much stronger then him and had been in seemingly hopeless situations as well, but he always been able to act, to do something. But now, he was frozen, paralyzed, overcome with a sense of fear and dread.

"Why are you here?" Sasuke asked calmly, still standing still, Kiba's weapons laying at his feet.

Kiba didn't responded--he couldn't respond. He tried to say something but nothing came out. He tried to look away from Sasuke, but he couldn't. He knew what powers those red eyes held, he had been warned numerous times by his parents and Kurenai, but he couldn't look away, he was paralyzed with fear.

"Why are you here?" Sasuke repeated, reaching to his back to lay a hand on his sword. He didn't have the patience to deal with the mutt if he was just going to stand there saying nothing.

"I'm looking for you," Kiba stammered, Sasuke's movement to his weapon brining him back to reality. He didn't see the point in lying to Sasuke, his eyes would just see through the lie anyway. Plus, saying he was just on a friendly stroll and just so happened to find himself in one of Sasuke's hidden bases didn't really seem all that plausible.

"Are you alone?" Sasuke asked, his grip on the sword loosening.

"Y-yes," Kiba replied. He knew Sasuke would most likely see through the lie but he would do anything he could to try and keep them safe.

"Why are you looking for me?" Sasuke questioned, changing the subject.

"It was a mission, given to me by Naruto," Kiba answered. Had Sasuke really believed him when he said he was alone? Akamaru wasn't even with him and Akamaru was always with him, it didn't seem plausible that he would go on a mission with his faithful companion, yet Sasuke seemed to believe him.

"Naruto, huh? What does that idiot think he's doing sending one person to find me? Where you supposed to kill me as well?"

"N-no," Kiba stammered. So Sasuke really had believed he was alone?

"Interesting, seems like a pretty pointless mission then," Sasuke said. He had taken his hand completely off his sword now and had let it fall to his side.

Kiba still stood paralyzed, not knowing what to do. Sasuke didn't seem to angry that he had an intruder in his base, maybe is he ran for it Sasuke would just let him go? Testing his plan, Kiba slightly moved his left foot back, taking a small step away. Sasuke saw the movement though and lunged at Kiba.

The sudden movement brought Kiba completely back to reality and he easily sidestepped the attack. Sasuke's attack had been quick, but Kiba was quick as well and this time he had been able to see the movement well enough to dodge the attack. Kiba then used his momentum to spring off the wall and land at his weapons which still lay on the ground where Sasuke had been standing.

Before Kiba could bend could and pick up his weapons Sasuke was there, attacking again. Kiba barely had time to react but was able to leap back before Sasuke hit him. Kiba now stood about three meters from Sasuke, breathing heavily. He had barely fought at all, yet he felt completely exhausted. His legs felt like they were made of lead and his movements had been slow and sloppy. Yet Sasuke hadn't been able to hit him. Had that insane burst of speed before just been a fluke? Was Sasuke really so weak he couldn't get a single hit?

"You're pretty slow," Kiba joked, gaining a little confidence back. Sasuke seemed completely un-phased though and as Kiba took a closer look he noticed that Sasuke didn't even has his sharingan activated. It was obvious that Sasuke was holding back an incredible amount and Kiba had been kidding himself when he thought for even a second he stood a chance.

"So where is Akamaru?" Sasuke asked, deciding to talk again. "I don't think I ever saw you without him back in Konoha."

Kiba swore to himself. He had hoped that Sasuke would just believe he was alone. "He's dead," Kiba lied. This was a completely plausible lie though. It was normal for Shinobi to die, whether they be human or dog. He just hoped that Sasuke didn't keep tabs on the condition of individual Konoha Shinobi. A dog dieing wasn't the kind of news he would want to hear, right?

"Shame," Sasuke said, remaining still.

Kiba breathed a sigh of relief, Sasuke had believed him again. Kiba now was no longer paralyzed with fear, the short burst of combat had been enough to wake him up. He had made up his resolve now, he would fight Sasuke. Sasuke seemed to be messing around, he most likely had underestimated Kiba. Kiba had learned many new powerful techniques over the years since he had last seen Sasuke, if Sasuke wasn't using his sharigan there was a possibility he could use one of these strong new moves and beat him.

Kiba bent down into a fighting stance, getting ready to fight again. Sasuke still didn't seem to be taking the fight seriously and stood where he was, his stance still completely relaxed. Kiba started to mold his chakra, getting ready to move, he would only have one chance, if he messed it up he would be dead.

"This is pointless," Sasuke muttered before seemingly vanishing.

Kiba gasped, he didn't even have time to react at all this time. He vomited blood and fell forward as Sasuke's fist connected powerfully with his stomach. Sasuke took a step back and let Kiba fell to the floor. The punch had been incredibly powerful and Kiba hadn't even been able to block the blow at all. He collapsed to ground, a lay there, unable to move at all. Kiba tried to tilt his head and look up at Sasuke but couldn't and the last thing he saw before everything faded to black was his weapon pouches lying just out of reach at Sasuke's feet.

xx

Back in Konoha Naruto sat behind his desk, groaning as he went through the endless paperwork in a decidedly terrible mood. He wasn't in a bad mood because of the paperwork, although that didn't make it any better. He was in a bad mood because although he had only been up for an hour, he'd received enough bad news to last him a week.

So Naruto went through his paperwork, his mind on other things. He hadn't even been Hokage for a month; why did everything have to happen now? Just when he thought his day couldn't get any worse Shikamaru walked in. Shikamaru coming in normally wouldn't be a bad thing, but at the current moment Shikamaru was blissfully ignorant of what was happening and Naruto was not looking forward to destroying that ignorance.

What made it even worse was the fact that Shikamaru already looked like he was in an awful mood. His eyes were trained on the floor and he had a gloomy air to him. He walked into the room slowly and barely even acknowledged Naruto, only giving him a half hearted nod as he placed some documents on his desk before turning to leave.

"Hey Shikamaru, what's wrong?" Naruto asked.

"Nothing, why?" Shikamaru replied flatly.

"You just seem kind of gloomy, it's kind of depressing," Naruto said, knowing his comment probably wouldn't do anything to alleviate Shikamaru's mood.

"I could say the same thing about you," Shikamaru said, "You seemed pretty depressed when I first came in, all the work finally getting to you?"

"Yeah, sort of," Naruto muttered. "But there's some other stuff too."

"Like what?" Shikamaru asked. He didn't know why he was having this conversation.

"Well, um," Naruto started. He knew he had to tell Shikamaru what had happened as it was important that Shikamaru knew; he just didn't know how to start. "You know how Sakura and Ino went on that mission not too long ago?"

"The one they're on now?" Shikamaru questioned, he had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going but he wasn't going to jump to conclusions.

"Yeah," Naruto replied. "Well Ino got sick and they don't think she is going to live." Naruto blurted out all at once not sure how he could make the news any less shocking.

Shikamaru went pale. He had a feeling that this may be what Naruto was hinting at by he had hoped he was wrong; but he was never wrong. Shikamaru stayed quite now, not knowing what to say to this. He had been friends and teammates with Ino since he was in the academy, he couldn't imagine she would actually die like this.

Naruto didn't speak for a moment, letting the news sink in. Although Shikamaru looked shocked and even more confused then he was when he had come in, he seemed to be taking it well. Naruto was wrought with worry as well. Not only was he worried about Ino but he was also fearful for Sakura. If Ino could get sick from whatever disease she did contract then Sakura could as well. Naruto was starting to worry about the whole situation as well. When he had sent Ino and Sakura originally he had figured that the Feudal lord just had a bad flu or at worst had been poisoned. He had never expected the entire town to become plagued by the sickness as well as one of his Shinobi.

"There's more," Naruto continued after a long moment of awkward silence. "We've received word that almost the entire village Sakura and Ino were sent to has been overcome by some sort of plague. On top of that the disease has spread to a few near by villages. To add to all this many of the people in villages that do not have the disease yet are fearful it will reach them eventually and are growing angry at Konoha because they don't think we are doing enough."

Shikamaru still remained silent. His mind was just being overwhelmed with new information; something that didn't occur often in the genius. When he had first come in just thinking about what he was going to do about Temari was confusing enough. Now he had Ino to think about as well as this plague; which he undoubtedly was expected to come up with a way to deal with.

"Shikamaru we have to come up with a way to deal with this," Naruto stated. He felt like an asshole for seemingly downplaying the news about Ino but it was crucial for Konoha's safety that they figure out what to do about this plague.

"I don't know," Shikamaru whispered.

"You don't know?" Naruto asked. He had known for Shikamaru for most of his life and he had never seen Shikamaru unable to come up with a plan even under extreme stress.

"Just let me think for a second," Shikamaru muttered. His answer had surprised even him. He just had so much on his mind that he hadn't been able to think of anything. After a few deep breathes Shikamaru was able to calm himself enough to start coming up with the basis of a plan. "We should send some Shinobi to secure the diseased villages and then more medics to the other towns to try and calm them so that an uprising doesn't occur. We should also be sure to keep spies constantly monitoring the cloud village as we may become vulnerable."

"Okay then. Let's get started."

xx

In the village hidden in the clouds a young ANBU women gives her status report to her leader.

"It appears as if everything is going according to your plan, sir." The young women says.

"Good," The Raikage responds, relaxing a little bit. This whole ordeal has been nothing but trouble for him and he just prayed it would be over soon.

"What is the next step, sir?"

"If things progress at the current rate we should be ready to move within a week," The Raikage replied. "Assemble your men and be ready to move at any time. With any luck we won't even have to fight a single battle."

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Hope you liked it. I'll try to get next chapter up within a week. Reviews will make me write that much faster :). 


	11. Captured

Chapter 10: Captured

"Kiba, can you hear me?" Shino repeated for what must have been the tenth time.

Shino, Hinata and Akamaru had all arrived back at the entrance to the base uneventfully, but Kiba had yet to show. It had only been a few minutes so none of them were jumping to conclusions but it was odd that Kiba was not responding to any of their calls.

"D-do you think something happened?" Hinata stammered. For the most part Hinata had been able to refrain from stuttering in recent years but whenever she got worried or stressed she couldn't help herself.

"If something happened we would have heard something over the communicators," Shino replied, remaining calm. "I think Kiba is just still investigating and wants to keep radio silence as to not alert any possible enemies."

Hinata nodded, wanting to believe Shino but deep down she knew something was wrong. Kiba had already reported having finished searching and he should have been back by now. Even if he was still searching he should have given them at least some response, only if it was a few taps to alert them that he was okay.

Akamaru whined, worried as well. He paced back and forth nervously, sniffing at the air from time to time. There was an odd scent that he could smell but it was very faint, as if whatever had made it had only been there for a moment. Even with his acute sense of smell, he still couldn't determine what exactly this scent was. It was familiar, yet strange. Just as he was getting a better idea of what this smell was; another, more familiar small hit his nose.

"Akamaru, what are you doing?" Shino demanded as the giant white dog took off down the corridor which Kiba had headed. Akamaru didn't respond: he just kept on running disappearing into the dark in the distance. Worried, Shino took off down the hall after the giant dog; barely able to keep a pace fast enough to keep the blur of white in site.

Suddenly alone, Hinata hesitated for a moment in the darkness before heading down the hall as well. She had activated her byukagan now and could see Shino and Akamaru a short distance down the hall but beyond that there was nothing. Hinata grew even more nervous. While the halls were long she should still be able to see all the way down with her byukagan, yet she saw nothing.

In the distance Akamaru hurried down the hall at a maddening pace. It had taken more then ten minutes to walk the entire length before, but this time Akamaru had made almost the entire trip in nearly thirty seconds. The bitter scent became stronger and stronger as Akamaru neared the end of the hall until the smell reached its apex and Akamaru skidded to a halt. It only took him a second to locate the source of the smell and when he did he let out a panicked whine.

"Akamaru, what is it?" Shino asked as he finally caught up a few moments later. Being an observant person Shino instantly saw what had caused Akamaru to be so worried.

"What's wrong?" Hinata said as she finally caught up as well. Akamaru had started frantically sniffing at the ground and was now traveling further down the corridor. Also being a fairly observant person, Hinata also quickly found what had caused Akamaru to go into such a frenzy. "Is that...?"

Shino nodded. "It is definitely his," Shino said as he extended his arms to let his bugs escape from their host and search the area. Shino bent down to pick up a small piece of electronics to examine it. It was definitely Kiba's headset. This was why they hadn't heard him come into contract with anyone; his communicator had been removed and broke.

This wasn't what had worried Akamaru though. What had worried the normally fearless beast was what was next to the discarded fragments of electronics. Right adjacent to the broken headset was a small puddle of what was undoubtedly Kiba's blood—and no sign of Kiba.

Akamaru had reached the end of the hallway now and was sniffing at the bottom of the rock wall. His master's smell was still lingering but it ended right at the wall as if he had gone right through it which was strange because the wall seemed completely intact. But mixed with Kiba's smell was now another one that had become much stronger.

"Do you see anything?" Shino asked his remaining teammates as he finished searching the area with his bugs. It would be logical that Kiba would be in one of these rooms as he was no where to be seen in the halls and it appeared he did not force his way out through the end wall; but he had found no trace of him.

Hinata shook her head. She had searched the proximity with her byukagan and had found nothing. She was getting even more worried now. How could Kiba just disappear like this?

Akamaru was still sniffing at the wall at the end of the hallway. Kiba's smell definitely lead to here, but it seemed to go right through the wall. Looking back to his teammates, Akamaru saw that they had found nothing either. This made Akamaru even surer that Kiba was beyond this wall. Growing tired of waiting, Akamaru took a step back from the wall. Crouching low, Akamaru molded his chakra before lunging at the wall, rapidly spinning his body, leaving a gaping hole where the wall used to be.

Beyond the wall lay more forest. Akamaru walked past the hole he had created and sniffed at the ground. It only took a second before he was able to pick up Kiba's scent again and without looking back to see if his team was going to follow, Akamaru took off into the forest, tracking his master's scent.

Shino hesitated, but only for a moment. He knew how Akamaru probably felt right now, but acting so brashly was still dangerous. With a quick glance over to Hinata, Shino took off after Akamaru, signaling for Hinata to follow.

This time it was almost impossible to catch up to Akamaru. If Akamaru had been manic when he had smelled Kiba's blood, it didn't even compare to the complete frenzy he was in now. Even running at top speed, both Shino and Hinata could barely keep him in plain view and had to rely on Hinata's byukagan and Shino's bugs to at least stay on his path.

Up ahead Akamaru was darting from tree to tree at a maddening pace. He was going so fast he almost lost Kiba's scent a few times when the path changed course slightly. Behind him, he could sense his other teammates chasing after him. He didn't know if they supported what he was doing, as it would be easy to get caught in an ambush while running this fast and recklessly, but he didn't care.

He had been with Kiba for more then a decade now and he wasn't about to loose his master now. He could smell the other scent that was mixed in with Kiba's, and he knew who's it was, but even with this knowledge and the knowledge that even if he did catch up, there probably wasn't much he could do; he still moved forward. Akamaru would gladly give his life to even _try_ and save Kiba, and he knew Kiba would do the same for him.

"Akamaru, slow down, we have to think this out," Shino yelled to Akamaru, hoping the dog would listen.

Akamaru ignored Shino's request and kept on moving. Every minute that past could mean Kiba was a minute closer to death, if he wasn't already. If he stopped to listen to Shino, Kiba could die while they were coming up with a plan or he could loose the scent.

The farther Akamaru went the stronger the scent got. Kiba and Sasuke had stopped up ahead and had caused their scent to intensify. Whether they were still there or not they would find out soon enough. So Akamaru picked up his pace, the small glimmer of hope they Kiba was up ahead giving him a boost of energy. As he moved further and further, the scent got stronger and stronger. And then—the scent was gone.

Akamaru had arrived at a river and after the scent reached an apex; it disappeared, lost with the flow of the river. Akamaru panicked. He ran up and down the river but couldn't find the trail again. Even after crossing the river and trying to pick up the scent again, he couldn't. It was obvious what had happened. Sasuke had taken Kiba to the river, and after a short break, had continued to travel on the river, effectively causing Akamaru to loose any scent as well as any hope of being able to track footprints.

Shino and Hinata finally caught up now that Akamaru had slowed his pace to try and regain the trail. Akamaru approached them, trying to talk and tell them what had happened but all that came out was a few indistinguishable whimpers. Even though Akamaru was making no sense at all, they both knew what had happened.

Even though Shino wasn't as frantic as Akamaru, he still wanted to find and rescue Kiba as well; he just wanted to do it in a way that wouldn't get them instantly killed. He had been teammates and friends with Kiba for almost as long as Akamaru and it would hit him hard if he died, but he knew rushing in and getting them all killed would not help Kiba.

"Akamaru, calm down," Shino ordered. Even though he knew Akamaru wouldn't attack him, it was still discomforting to have the giant dog so rabid.

The giant dog complied slightly, but still remained in a mostly manic state. He was pacing uncontrollably and was whining and whimpering.

Hinata had caught up as well and was scanning the area with her byukagan. She had to use almost all her energy to just to keep herself calm and not cry. She knew Shino would reprimand her for crying at a time like this when they needed her to be calm and observant. She just didn't want to loose Kiba. Kiba had helped her through a lot and she didn't want to loose him now. But even though she had managed to keep herself calm, she still couldn't find any trace of Kiba.

"I-I don't see him anywhere," Hinata stammered.

This made Akamaru even more nervous and he started to become more manic. If he couldn't smell Kiba and Hinata couldn't see him then there wasn't much hope they would be able to track him. He knew Shino was a good tracker as well, but he wasn't as good at detecting something that was a great distance away.

"Akamaru, calm down," Shino repeated.

Again, Akamaru calmed down a little, but wouldn't be able to become perfectly calm until he was able to see Kiba again.

"So what do we do now?" Akamaru whimpered, finally able to calm down enough to form words.

Shino stood quite for a moment, contemplating the best plan of action. "I think the best thing to do now may be to leave Kiba and return to Konoha."

xx

"Ino can you hear me?"

Ino groaned and tried to sit up but failed, falling back into her bed. It felt as if all her energy had been sucked out of her body and she could barely move. Ino tried to open her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a coughing fit. Deciding to save her energy for later, Ino just nodded.

"Ino, I need to ask you some questions," Sakura informed, getting right to the point. She wanted to stay with Ino so that she could comfort the sick girl, but she couldn't afford to waste time doing that, she had to be as concise as possible so she could get back to helping everyone else.

Ino nodded, understanding Sakura's dilemma. She didn't want to feel like a burden right now and just hoped that she could help, even in her grave state.

"Ino, is there anything you have eaten or consumed here that could have caused this?" Sakura asked.

Ino thought for a moment. Since more people started to get sick she had only eaten what they had brought with them and before that she hadn't eaten at all. "I don't think I've-" Ino started to say but again was interrupted by coughing fit.

"Don't over exert yourself," Sakura ordered, wiping some blood that Ino had coughed up from the sides of her mouth.

Ino nodded and tried to recompose herself for a moment before speaking again. Speaking was proving to be rather difficult though. Her throat was burning and every time she went to talk she couldn't help but cough. Right now it was even becoming difficult to think of what to say or to even think at all. Her head ached and felt like it was spinning; obviously side effects of the feverish temperatures she had developed. The pain in the rest of her body didn't help much either. Her chest and stomach felt like they were on fire, as if her skin was just melting off her body.

"So did you eat or drink anything while here or come into contact with anything strange?" Sakura asked again.

Ino tried to take a few deep breaths to recompose herself but ended up in another coughing fit. She really couldn't think of anything strange that she had done though that Sakura hadn't though. It was possible that the disease was transmitted through the air and that certain people were just more immune to it then others. But even though this was the most likely conclusion Ino could draw at the moment she still wracked her brain to try and remember anything that could have caused this.

After a moment of thought Ino couldn't think of anything and decided to retrace her steps to try and figure out this mystery. She had arrived and started working on the feudal lord almost immediately and worked in the lab. This must have gone on for at least a day or two and she didn't eat anything the entire time. When she had thought she had found the source of the disease the first time Sakura told her she was just to exhausted and told her to sleep. The nurse had lead her to her room and given her sleeping pills, which she refused, and…

"Water," Ino coughed out. The only thing she had consumed the entire time here was a glass of water she had drained before trying to go to sleep that first time.

"That's the only thing you've eaten or drunken?" Sakura asked.

Ino nodded. After she had drunken that she had tried to sleep and then went back to work and hadn't so much as had another sip or bite of anything.

Sakura frowned. This could be bad if the disease was in the water. But the realization that Ino had only consumed water could have other negative implications. The water that ran to the town was one of the first things that had tested and they had found no anomalies. Even if Sakura knew the disease was in the water there was nothing she could do if she couldn't isolate it. And if water was really the only thing Ino had consumed then that could mean that there was no specific medium that the disease was traveling in and it was just airborne and could not be contained. Sakura had hoped that maybe Ino had eaten some rarer meat or drink that they had failed to test yet and that she could isolate the disease there, but that hope had been diminished.

But even with all these doubts running through her mind, this was the only lead Sakura had been given and she had to use it. Even if she couldn't isolate the foreign substance in the water she had to assume that it was in fact _in_ the water and stop it from spreading further.

This really was a major breakthrough though. Sakura had found the only possible source of the disease and now she could stop it. While it may still be too late for this village, if she could stop the spread of the water to other villages she could stop this plague. The only problem was that she didn't know where the water came from. Most towns, especially larger ones, had their own spring that they tapped water from. With any luck this town had its own spring and the water flow could easily be contained. Outside of this town it seemed only a few people in a near by town had been infected. Most likely it was a smaller town that borrowed water from this town's spring.

Ino interrupted Sakura's thoughts with another coughing fit, accompanied by a few loud groans. Sakura looked down at her ill friend again, growing worried now. Even if she did now know the source of the disease it didn't change the fact that Ino was most likely going to die.

"Ino, thank you," Sakura said solemnly. "I'll do everything I can to stop this, don't worry."

Ino nodded and flashed a weak smile. She was even more exhausted then ever right now and it was becoming a challenge to even stay awake.

"Don't worry, Ino," Sakura repeated.

Ino finally completely ran out of energy, and with one more weak smile and nod fell into a painful sleep once more.

Even thought Sakura wanted to stay with Ino, she couldn't, she had to get on with her duties. Her first priority right now was to stop the flow of water out of this town. Sakura left the room in search of the doctor. Most everyone from the towns government had fallen ill and right now it seemed like the top person in the town was the doctor.

It didn't take long to find the man. Like everyone else in the town the doctor was in the hospital, and Sakura found him tending to some people in one of the several rooms they had dedicated to tending for the diseased people.

The doctor looked exhausted, he undoubtedly had been working just as hard as she and Ino had and at the current moment looked like he was just moments away from collapsing.

"I think I may have found the source of the disease," Sakura said as she approached the doctor, getting right to the point. There was no time for formalities right now.

"What?" The doctor asked, he had perked up considerably after hearing this. It was the closest thing they had gotten to good news in a long time.

"I think the disease may be spreading through the water," Sakura replied. "We have to contain the water here to make sure the disease doesn't spread anymore."

The doctors face immediately went pale.

"Have you drunken any of the water?" Sakura asked.

The doctor nodded. "That's not what worries me though. I've already accepted the fact that most likely I will get this disease. What worries me is that this village gets its water from a river. And that river, once going through a purifying plant to to far down stream from this town, goes to just about the entire fire country."

xx

Kiba groaned as he slowly opened his eyes. His whole body was aching with a particularly bad pain in his stomach. What the hell had happened? Where the hell was he? Kiba tried to move but his entire body was bound. His arms tied behind his back and his feet bound together and to the chair he was currently trapped in. The room was pitch black and smelled of mold as well as some other acrid smells. How had this happened?

And then everything came back to Kiba at once. The base, Sasuke, the fight...loosing. So then why was he still alive? And where the hell was he? This place didn't smell like the last base they had been in, so where was it? And where were his teammates? He couldn't smell them anywhere near. Had they realized that he had been captured yet? He hoped that Akamaru and his teammates didn't do anything stupid, he didn't want them to get into any trouble as well.

Without even realizing, Kiba's breath had become ragged and his hands were trembling. He swore at himself for letting himself get so worked up. He had to think right now and he couldn't do that if he was going to start panicking. After a few deep breaths Kiba's heart rate was back to normal and he had stopped his trembling. He had to think of a way to get out of here.

Kiba tried to mold some chakra, but the attempt was futile, the room or something in it was suppressing his chakra and he couldn't call up enough to do anything useful. Kiba found himself panicking again and bit his lip hard, drawing blood, using the pain to calm himself.

So he had been caught. There had to be something he could do. He was still alive, which was a plus, but that most likely meant that Sasuke still had some use for him. This could actually end up being a good thing. Sasuke had taken his weapons pouch which had the scroll in it. Sasuke would most likely check anything in the pouches and find the scroll and he would complete his mission. With any luck, Naruto had some plan and he would be saved. He couldn't put all his hope into this though. Sasuke would obviously see the scroll was embedded with Naruto's chakra and would abandon it. If that happened he had to think of another way to escape.

Kiba's thoughts were interrupted as a metal door, the only way in or out of the room, slowly creaked open. Kiba squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light now emitting into the room from the hall.

Before his vision even came back Kiba knew who it was, he could smell it. Even without being able to use his chakra his smell was still far superior then a normal person's.

"Sasuke," Kiba growled at the man standing in the doorway.

"So you're up?" Sasuke replied nonchalantly.

"Why didn't you kill me?" Kiba asked.

"Because I still have some use." Sasuke responded predictably. "And it would be in your best interest if you complied with me and my friends requests."

"Or else what? You gonna torture me or something?" Kiba spat back. "Sorry but you can beat me to a bloody pulp and I won't tell you shit." It was true. Kiba had never been truly tortured but he had been through a lot of pain throughout his life as a shinobi and he could handle whatever Sasuke threw at him.

"We'll see." Sasuke said, undeterred by Kiba's response. He turned to leave now, he had only come to wake up Kiba, he had no interest in what happened to Kiba from this point on. "Let me warn you though. There are much worse kinds of pain then physical torture can bring." And with saying this, Sasuke walked out and closed the heavy metal door behind him, leaving Kiba in darkness once again.


	12. Pain

Hope everyone is enjoying this fic so far, I know I've enjoyed writing it for the most part. If anyone has any comments or suggestions please tell me, I'm glad to hear from anyone. I hope no one is going to stop reading if a character they like dies, as there was a small decline in the amount of hits the last chapter got, although that may be for some other reason. So if there is anything in this fic you don't like, please tell me and I will try to fix it, although if it is something plot related there is no guarantee. Well anyways, enjoy this chapter, next one should be up sooner rather then later as I have already started it! So please review and give me some feedback.

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Chapter 11: Pain 

"S-so how do we stop it?" Sakura stammered. There had to be a way to contain the flow of water, even if it did come from a river that flowed to most of the fire country.

"I'm not really sure," The doctor replied. "Even if we can it may be too late. The disease has been in the water for at least a week and for all we know it could have been there for months and just sits dormant. It could already have been spread to the entire country and then it would just be a matter of time."

"But we have to at least try," Sakura said. "If the river leads to a purifying plant then we can go there and try and stop the flow."

"I suppose, but even if we do damn the flow of water it will back up and flood the land behind and then the rest of the country will have a very limited supply of water."

Sakura bit her lip, trying to think of the best course of action. It was necessary to stop the spread of the disease, but it was true that stopping the flow of water to the rest of the country could lead to a drought. There were many other sources of water and there were towns that relied on other springs and streams; but cutting off this major stream would still be harmful. It was obvious what she had to do though. It was better to have most of the country alittle short on water then to have everyone dead.

"That doesn't matter, we have to stop the flow of water," Sakura stated, "I want you to go and find the other Konoha shinobi that should be around this town now and tell them to travel to the purifying plant to try and dam the flow of water. I'm going to stay here and continue caring for people and working on finding a cure."

The doctor nodded and walked away, gloomy. Despite all his and the Konoha medic nins best efforts the village had fallen and most likely many other in the fire country would as well. He couldn't give up now though, he had to believe that Sakura would do what even she thought was impossible and cure the disease.

Sakura immediately got back to work. Even if they did have a lead that didn't change the fact that there were still hundreds of sick people already. She had to do everything she could for these people, even if that was just making them a little more comfortable. In the end that may be the only thing she can do for anyone. What the doctor said was true, even if they did block the river all they were really doing was delaying. In the end the only way to truly stop this was to find the cure.

Sakura shook these thoughts off, she couldn't be thinking so negatively all the time. She had to save the people here, the people in the rest of fire country and she had to save Ino. That's what made all of this that much harder. The knowledge that every second she wasted was another second that Ino lost. The knowledge that if she didn't stop this disease Ino would die and eventually the disease would reach Konoha and the people there would die as well.

xx

Kiba awoke again to darkness. Had he really been able to sleep again? It wasn't that surprising he had been able to sleep even in these conditions; he hadn't gotten much rest since the mission had started. He was also surprisingly relaxed for being in such an intense situation. He had been captured and was bound in a dark room in a place he had no idea of the location. Sasuke himself had promised torture, torture worse then anything he could imagine at that, and yet he still felt relaxed. Sure he usually was able to handle stress well but he would never had expected to feel like this while be captive.

As long as his teammates were still safe, Kiba was fine. He was worried how they would react when they realized he wasn't there any more, especially how Akamaru would act, as they hadn't been separated for more then a day or two for more then a decade. He just hoped that his teammates wouldn't do anything stupid like trying to save him and get themselves killed.

Kiba reclined back in the chair as much as he could and took a deep breath. His range of motion wasn't too good, being bound by both his feet and hands to the chair, but he could move enough to stretch out his back and get comfortable, or at least as comfortable as you could get being bound to a wooden chair. Kiba decided to enjoy this moment, it could be one of his last pain free moments of his life. Not that he minded, he was ready for death at any moment and he was actually surprised he had made it to the old age of twenty three. The thought of the inevitable pain didn't bother him too much either. He could handle pain, being a shinobi he had been through a lot of pain and had grown accustomed to it.

Kiba chuckled as his stomach growled. He found it funny how he was on the verge of death and all he could think about was how much he wanted a hamburger right about now. He leaned forward now, writhing around in the constraints to test their durability. Of course they couldn't be broken, but it never hurt to try.

After a short while longer sitting in the dark Kiba's eyes finally adjusted to the pitch blackness. Kiba took the opportunity to observe his surroundings again. The only door was a thick metal one directly in front of him with the only light coming in being from the small crack at the bottom. Besides the door and himself, the room seemed completely barren. Kiba took a moment now to look down at himself. Sasuke had been nice enough to at least leave most of his clothes on. He still had on a back t-shirt and luckily his pants were still on, for the most part completely intact. Kiba found himself laughing again. He found it funny that he was about to die and he was thinking about how he was lucky that Sasuke didn't strip him.

"Having fun I see," a cold voice hissed from behind.

Kiba jumped, the sudden noise shocking him. He turned his head to look for the source of the noise. He had just scanned the room and he hadn't seen anything and he didn't smell any people. After quickly searching the room again Kiba again confirmed that he was alone. Was there a speaker or camera in the room? He couldn't see one but it was possible there was one hidden in the corner of the room where he couldn't see.

"Why are you so confused?" The voice came again, this time from the front. What the hell was this? An illusion?

A twisted laugh now echoed throughout the room. Kiba gasped as the floor seemed to morph and shimmer, distorting under his feet. Slowly a mound started to form in front not to far in front of Kiba. The laugh continued as a head formed from the mound and gradually the rest of a sickly body. If the shrill laugh wasn't enough to give Kiba goosebumps the disgusting form of this mans body was.

The man had long greasy black hair that hung over his shoulders. He wore only a thin ghostly white robe and all over his ghastly white skin lay a countless number of scars. There seemed to be more scar tissue on him then normal skin. Everything from long white slits to deep gashes and craters where it looked like the flesh had been carved out of his body. His face was equally grotesque. His eyes consisted of only a large faded black pupil. A wicked smile crossed his thin colorless lips. His face was just as scarred as the rest of his body with a particularly nasty gash running up the entire right side of his face.

"Are you enjoying my air?" The man hissed, "It's laced with drugs that causes your brain to release more endorphins which is giving you that euphoric feeling you're undoubtedly feeling right about now. I find people are more cooperative if they are just a little bit high. But just in case it doesn't it also makes your pain receptors that much more sensitive." The man continued his vicious laugh as he finally completely emerged from the ground and stood up tall.

A shiver ran down Kiba's spine as the man stood in front of him, a twisted grin on his face. All the good feelings Kiba had been having before were rapidly dissipating.

"What the hell do you want?" Kiba sneered. Even if this man scared him, Kiba still had no intentions of cooperating.

"It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of seeing a Konoha shinobi," The pale man said, "There are a lot of things me and my friends would like to know."

The man took a few steps forward till he was just inches from where Kiba sat. Then slowly, he bent down to eye level with Kiba, so his face almost touched Kiba's.

Kiba cringed as the man started to laugh again, his acrid smelling breath washing over his face. Kiba couldn't put his finger on what exactly the mans breath smelled like, all he knew was that it was awful, almost unbearable. Kiba tried to turn away but the man moved with him, always keeping his eye in line with Kiba's.

"Don't seem so desperate to get away," The man laughed as he stood up, taking a step back away from Kiba. "You aren't going to be going anywhere anytime soon."

"It's hard not to want to get away when your breath smells so bad," Kiba said. It was then that Kiba realized at least one of the many foul stenches the mans breath reeked of—blood.

The man didn't respond to Kiba's insult but just continued to laugh. He bent back down again, luckily this time staying a step away so Kiba couldn't smell his rank breath.

"So do you intend on cooperating with me?" The man asked, his shrill laugh finally dieing down.

"Not a chance," Kiba responded instantly. He didn't even know what was wanted of him yet, but even still he had no intentions of doing anything that would help Sasuke in any way.

The man smiled and started to laugh again, he almost seemed happy that Kiba was being uncooperative. Slowly he inched back towards Kiba, reaching his hand out and placing in on Kiba's knee.

"I was hoping you would say that," He sneered as he dug his nails deep into the pressure points around the knee.

Kiba cringed as a wave of pain shot through his body. The pain wasn't that bad but the man hadn't lied when he said that the drugs in the air made the pain receptors more sensitive. Kiba gritted his teeth as the man dug his nails deeper into his knee, drawing blood. The mans nails were like knives and they effortlessly cut through Kiba's pants and skin.

"It would have been no fun if you listened right away," The man continued. He had retreated his nails from Kiba's knee now and was examining the blood that had gotten stuck in his nails and dripped onto his hand. With another laugh, he brought his hand to his mouth and slowly licked the blood off his hand, enjoying the cupric taste. After all the blood had been sucked of his fingers the man slowly removed them from his mouth and moved his claws to his own arm. With a hiss, the man cut a long deep gash on his own arm, opening up a path along one of his many scars.

"You're sick, you know that?" Kiba spat. Had this man really inflicted all of those scars on his body on himself?

The man only laughed at this. He continued to open the gash on his arm until it had reached the length of the scar he had been tracing. Slowly, after pulling his nail out, he spread apart the cut he had made and reached a finger under his skin. He let out what sounded like a pleasured hiss as he pulled out a long, thin blade from under his skin.

"How about we have some fun now?" The man said as he brought the blade all the way out of his skin and let it loosely hang in between his fingers.

"Fuck you," Kiba hissed. This man seemed to have no interest in any of the information Kiba may have. He was just a sadistic freak who wanted to taste blood.

"Watch your mouth, you come off as crass," The man sneered as brought the blade to Kiba's shoulder and slowly pushed it in.

xx

On the other side of the sound base Sasuke stood along with Kabuto in a small lab room, examining Kiba's equipment that he had on him when he had been captured. He had had the normal jounin flak vest which had contained nothing of interest, only a few shuriken and basic technique scrolls. His weapon holsters for the most part had contained nothing noteworthy either; just the normal assortment of kunai and weapons as well as some soldier pills and smoke bombs. What Sasuke did find interesting however, was a strange scroll that had been mixed with the other weapons in his pouch as well as a strange vial of clear liquid and a syringe.

The vial of liquid was most likely some type of medicine or performance enhancing drug. It was strange though to have a power boosting drug that needed to be injected, as it would be completely impractical during battle to have to first withdraw the liquid from the bottle and then inject it.

"Kabuto I want you to run an analysis on this liquid," Sasuke ordered, tossing the vial over to the medic. Kabuto nodded in accordance before heading over to his equipment to start the tests.

Sasuke now turned his attention to the strange scroll. At first glance there did not appear to be anything unique about the scroll. But when Sasuke had given it a second look with his Sharingan what he saw perked his interest enough to examine the scroll at least a little longer.

The scroll seemed to be deeply imbedded with a very distinct chakra. It had been one Sasuke hadn't seen personally for years, but it was undoubtedly his. That annoying blond haired brat; the one that had caused him an endless amount of trouble over the past several years. The only one who had ever really reached him on any positive emotional level since he had lost his entire clan. The new Hokage of the hidden village of the leaf—Naruto.

Seeing this chakra as well as Kiba had been somewhat nostalgic for Sasuke. While he had never been too fond of the dog boy, he hadn't seen him since he had left Konoha and the encounter had brought back some memories; none of which he much cared to remember. Naruto's chakra on the other hand brought back many more powerful memories. All the times with team seven and all the countless times Naruto had somehow managed to track him down even after he had left Konoha.

Sasuke clenched his hand into a fist and brought it down hard on the table. He didn't need all these worthless emotions right now. The last thing he needed was to be thinking about Naruto and Konoha. Those times were behind him now and there was no way he could go back now, even if he wanted to.

After a deep breath, Sasuke was back to his normal complacent self. He unclenched his fist and went back to examining the odd scroll he had found in Kiba's pack. Besides being loaded with Naruto's chakra, it seemed like a normal scroll. No strange writing on the outside, no fancy designs of any sort. What could it possibly be? It could very well be a special technique scroll Naruto had given Kiba. If Kiba had really been sent to search for him, then maybe whatever technique this scroll enabled the handler to use was meant to kill or capture him. It could also be a summoning scroll. Maybe Naruto intended for it to be opened so that he could come and try and beat him. If that was the case, then maybe it would be a good idea to open it; getting Naruto out of the way would be very beneficial.

Whatever the scroll contained though, Sasuke was careful not to touch it. Chances are it would react to his chakra in some way and he didn't want to take any unnecessary risks until he was sure he knew what the scroll did. The real question right now then, was if Naruto was really smart enough to create a scroll that could really cause him any harm. Chances are it was just a message of some sort and Naruto had just gotten excited while writing it and his chakra spilled into the paper. The nature of this chakra didn't seem like it had seeped into the scroll that way though, the chakras form almost seemed kind of familiar, like something he had seen before. Although even with his sharingan he couldn't tell much about the scroll except for the fact that it contained a huge amount of Naruto's chakra.

Sasuke frowned, he wouldn't be able to tell the scrolls purpose just by looking at it. He picked up one of the kunais Kiba had had in his back and carefully rolled the scroll over a few times, looking for any distinctive marking he may have missed. There had to be something that could give him some hint as to what the purpose of his scroll was. It was then that Sasuke saw the small markings that lay half exposed under the lip of the paper where the scroll would have to start to be opened from. Sasuke bent down and looked closer, trying to make out the markings.

When he realized what the markings said, Sasuke scoffed. Was Naruto really this stupid? The markings read 'To Sasuke. Urgent, please read right away.' Was this supposed to be some kind of joke? Naruto really expect him to read this and just open up the scroll, ignoring that fact that there was obviously something abnormal about it.

Suddenly Sasuke came to a realization. No, he hadn't figured out what the scroll was, but he remembered something about Naruto. He remembered who Naruto was and everything Naruto said he stood for. The Naruto he knew wouldn't try and booby trap a message to someone he had spent almost half his life trying to 'save.' Was this scroll really just a message that Naruto wanted to give him. One that he wanted to give Sasuke so badly that he was willing to sacrifice on his of his men, someone who he assumed Naruto would call his friend.

"Sasuke, Sir. I have completed my tests," Kabuto informed Sasuke, interrupting the Uchiha's train of thought.

Sasuke shook off his temporary confusion and responded. "What is it?"

"You may find this very useful, actually."

xx

Akamaru growled low and loud, baring his fangs. Shino had just proposed that they abandon Kiba for the time being and Akamaru did not like his idea at all. How could they just abandon him now? He had always seen how Shino seemed to act like Kiba was a burden at times with his loud mouth and hyperactivity, but he hadn't thought that Shino had been so cold hearted towards Kiba that he would just abandon him like this.

"Akamaru, calm down," Shino ordered as he saw the giant dogs sudden vicious attitude towards him. "I am not proposing that we give up all hope on trying to rescue Kiba. It is just not in our best interest to waste time searching when we have no leads as to his whereabouts. Our best option right now would be to report back our findings so far to Naruto. Kiba may still have the scroll, it is possible that Naruto can use that knowledge to track down Kiba."

Akamaru backed down but still remained in an aroused state for the most part. Even if Shino was thinking about this rationally and most likely did have the best idea, Akamaru wasn't prepared to return to Konoha without Kiba.

"Akamaru, you should listen to Shino," Hinata said. "I don't want to leave Kiba behind either but if we go back then Naruto can help us."

Akamaru let a small whimper escape his jaw. He knew Hinata wouldn't ever do anything that would hurt Kiba. In fact it almost seemed like she was trying to fight back tears and it was obvious that his current behavior wasn't making it any easier on Hinata. Kiba had always told him to do everything he could to make sure Hinata was safe, regardless of what would happen to either of them. Going after Kiba now with no trail would be putting them all in danger and that would not be something Kiba would want. Regardless of all that, it was pointless to be wasting time here. Without another moment of delay, Akamaru took off heading back towards Konoha, Shino and Hinata close behind.

xx

In a small room back in Konoha, the thirteen members of the Konoha council along with Shizune sat, all quite, deep in deliberation. Word had gotten to them about all that had been going on in the country: the disease, the threat from the cloud and the grim state of some of their shinobi. While it hadn't even been a month since Naruto had become Hokage, it was time for the council to review their decision and do what was best for Konoha.

"Shizune, what do you have to report?" one of the elder male members asked the relatively young black haired women.

"I'm worried about Naruto's health," Shizune replied. "He has started to show signs of intense anxiety and has started to develop some mild insomnia. I think the stress may be getting to him, he is still young, I'm not sure if he was ready to be given all this responsibility."

The members of the council all considered this information. While it was true that Naruto had shown signs of the stress getting to him this wasn't something that was all that abnormal. All the previous hokage's had a difficult time at first dealing with all the paperwork and stress they now had to deal with. Most of them had been highly active shinobi and it was a big transition to go from doing missions every day to sitting behind a desk.

"That should be considered normal for the time being," A female member of the council voiced. "I think the real problem here though may be his age. He is only twenty three. It may be too early to promote him to such a powerful position. While he has shown ample performance so far I think he may just not be experienced and wise enough if we really are facing war with the cloud."

"You did not seem to think he was too young when we appointed him the Hokage the first time," another elderly women said. "What had brought upon this sudden change of heart?"

"I'm just worried that he may not be ready to command the village if we do enter into a war," The first women responded.

"If we do enter into a war though he will always have us in the council to help," a male member of the council offered.

"That is true as well," The first women said. "What I really am worried about is the fact that he may be of more use to the village if he remained a ninja in the field instead of sitting back and commanding. He could play a very pivotal role if we let him fight instead of command."

"Yes, that is also true, but as Hokage he still will be able to fight, it is not like he is going to be forced to sit back and watch as a war goes one."

"So his age alone isn't enough of a concern to take away the title of Hokage."

"But there is still the matter of the kyubi," another of the male members said.

The room went quite now. The kyubi had been one of the most sensitive issues when they had first been deliberating making Naruto hokage, or even allowing him to be a shinobi anymore. By this point, most of the village was aware of the existence of the feared nine tails fox and knew that their new Hokage was its container. It had been one of the villages greatest fears that the kyubi broke free of the seals imposed upon it and reign terror once again.

"Over the past years Naruto has shown that he has greatly improved control over the kyubi. There is no reason to believe that the kyubi will be a threat."

"But the seals the fourth originally used have all but faded and now the only thing holding the kyubi back are the comparatively weak seals that Naruto imposed on himself. With the stress of having to protect this village in war added to all he already has to deal with may be enough to make Naruto loose control. If that happened it could be devastating for the village."

"We may have backed ourselves into a corner then," Shizune interrupted. "I have known Naruto for many years and one thing I have learned about him is that he does have something of a temper. If you take away his position as Hokage he may feel rejected and angry. If he looses control because of this the devastation on the village would be far worse if he lost control while still having positive feelings about the village."

"If that is true then it may be in the villages best interest to keep Naruto hokage, at least for the time being."

The whole council nodded in agreement. Although they were searching for reasons that Naruto was not fit to be Hokage deep down they all felt that he deserved the title. It was just necessary to constantly check up on his performance to ensure that he remains stable.

"Thank you for your time, Shizune, you may leave now," one the most senior members of the council said, signaling that their current meeting was over.

Shizune nodded and bowed before exiting the room. She quickly made her way out of the building and towards the front gate. She had to pick up mission reports for Naruto before heading back to the Hokage's office. While she was glad that Naruto was able to realize his dream of Hokage she was just worried that it may have been too early for him. In recent days he had become almost schizophrenic at times, the kyubi entering his conscious. She was worried that everything that was happening was slowly getting to him. What worried her most was the mission that he had sent team eight on, the mission to find Sasuke. She knew what Naruto's relationship was like with Sasuke and if he was not able to bring back Sasuke now she was worried what the consequences may be. The worst possible outcome was that Sasuke and the sound attacked the village, as Naruto may not be willing to make decisions that would get his closest friend killed, even if he was an enemy now.

Shizune just wished that Tsunade was still here. The old womens death had hit her particularly hard, but as a Shinobi, especially one with so much responsibility, she had to conceal her feelings so they didn't get in the way of her work. She just knew that if Tsunade were still alive she would be able to take control of this situation. If she were still Hokage then Naruto would still remain in the field and everything would be normal.

A deep sigh emitted from Shizune as she finally reached the front gate. She had only been gone from the Hokage's office for a short time but for some reason she still felt like a million things could have gone wrong and was anxious to pick up the documents and return. Deep down she still thought of Naruto as the little brat she and Tsunade had first many years ago. She knew though that he was not that kid anymore and that the village was indeed safe in his hands. She was also comforted by the fact that Shikamaru was there to help Naruto as well. With his genius mind, winning a war against a much weaker nation against the cloud was assured.

"Hello Shizune," The gate watchmen greeted as he saw the women approach, beaming a smile at her. "Here for the reports?"

Shizune nodded and took the papers that the man offered her. "Thank you." Shizune said, forcing a smile before turning to leave. She quickly looked over the small stack of papers she now help in her hand, making sure everything was in order. The stack was mostly just mission reports with a few messages from other towns as well, but one odd letter caught her attention. Shizune pulled the thick brown envelope from the stack and recognized it immediately as a diplomatic notice from the sand with the word 'urgent' scrawled on the front in red ink.

Shizune frowned, wondering what exactly could be so urgent about it and why it hadn't been brought immediately to the Hokage if it really was so urgent. Curiosity getting the best of her, Shizune slipped her nail under the flap of the envelope and tore it open, slipping the small pack of paper out. She continued walking as she started to read. As she finally realized what the document she froze, a gasp escaping from her.

"This is bad," Shizune muttered to herself before taking off in a run towards the Hokage's tower.


	13. Torture

Here's the net chapter. Please review, I really want some feedback on how this fic is coming out. Hopefully this chapter can make it to 88 reviews, that would mean it has twice as many reviews as my other multi chap fic in the same amount of chapters. That would make me happy. Regardless, please review, if you are enjoying this fic, it is the least you can do.

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Chapter 12: Torture 

Blood spattered onto the ground and ran out of the corners of Kiba's mouth as he coughed violently. Ever since the pale man had entered room the temperature had rapidly declined and the air had become stale. Kiba breathed heavily but it felt like no oxygen was getting into his lungs. The air was thinning and Kiba's head was starting to spin from the lack of oxygen.

Still breathing heavily Kiba let his head fall loosely down, his chin resting on his chest. The pale man had taken a step back, his cruel laugh still echoing in the small dark room. Blood dripped slowly down Kiba's chin, falling down onto his black shirt; which by this time had been slashed many times and was saturated with his blood. He must have lost a lot of blood by this point, as he was getting woozy and his vision was blurring. At his feet, Kiba could barely make out the puddle of his own blood that had accumulated around his feet.

"Are you read to cooperate yet?" The pale man asked, his cold voice sending chills down Kiba's spine.

"Fuck you, you sadistic freak," Kiba spat back, barely finishing the sentence before breaking out into another coughing fit.

"Now don't be so rude," The man hissed, bending down to eye level with Kiba again. "You don't want me to get serious."

"Serious? I'd like to see it, because my moms beat me up worse then what you've done so far," Kiba sneered, spitting a ball of blood into the mans face.

The pale man didn't even flinch or try to dodge as the blood hit him squarely on the cheek. He just let out another low laugh and licked the blood of his cheek. "Don't fuck with me." The man hissed as he grabbed onto Kiba's shoulders and with one swift push, sent him flying back towards the back wall.

Kiba grunted as he slammed into the back wall, his arms which had been tied behind his back taking much of the impact. Kiba groaned in pain as he felt blood run down his arm as previously healed gashes opened again from the impact. As Kiba tried to move his arm to push himself off the wall he cringed, pain shooting up his entire right arm. The impact must have broken something and now his right arm was completely useless; as if he really had any use for any part of his body right now.

"You don't want me to get Sasuke in here, do you?" The pale man hissed as he made his way back to Kiba in an instant. "He has ways to torture you that would make even me cringe."

Kiba tried to retort the mans threat but couldn't as his entire mouth was filled with blood. Painfully, he swallowed the blood fighting back the bile that rose in the back of his throat. You can swallow more then a pint of blood before you get sick. By this time Kiba must have swallowed several times that amount.

"Sure, get Sasuke in here, we can make this a threesome," Kiba was finally able to say, the taste of blood still highly evident in his mouth.

"You're kind of funny, its really a shame I'm going to have to kill you," the pale man said.

"You could always just let me go," Kiba joked, smiling weakly.

"Funny..." The pale man took a few steps back, a rare serious look crossing his face. "Let me ask you one last time. Do you intend on cooperating?"

"Not a chance," Kiba replied without a second thought. "There's no way I'm helping you or that asshole Sasuke."

"I'll let you in on a little secret," The pale man whispered as he bent down bringing himself to within inches of Kiba, "I hate Sasuke. I have no intentions of helping him, so I could care less if you cooperate or not."

"Then why are you doing this?" Kiba asked. If the man didn't intend on getting any information from him then why had he cut up his body so badly?

"Because there is someone else I need to help," The pale man said as a sadistic look appeared on his face. "And for personal reasons." The man raised his blade, his primary tool, and licked the blood that still remained on the metal.

"Who else could you possibly want to help?"

"Sasuke is in far less control then he thinks," The man whispered. "_He_ will make his return."

"Who are-" Kiba started to say but was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door.

"What is it?" The pale man said, never taking his eyes off of Kiba.

The door slowly creaked open revealing Kabuto on the other side. "I was asked by Sasuke to deliver this." Kabuto said, holding out a needle. "He said it would be useful."

"Well then inject it and get out," The pale man ordered. He stood up and backed away from Kiba, letting Kabuto get closer.

Kiba's eye went wide with horror when he saw what Kabuto held in his hand.

"Y-you don't have to use that," Kiba stammered, fidgeting madly in his seat.

"So you intend to cooperate?" Kabuto asked, pausing a moment before slowly inserting the needle into leg.

Kiba bit his lip. He couldn't just give up and cooperate, but the last thing he wanted right now was to be injected with that stuff. He watched in horror as Kabuto slowly inserted the needle into his leg, holding it there, waiting for Kiba's response.

"I'm sorry," Kabuto whispered when his threat was met with nothing but silence from Kiba. With one swift push the plunger on the needle had been depressed and the liquid had entered Kiba's bloodstream.

Kiba gritted his teeth as he felt the initial euphoria the liquid caused. His whole body started to warm up and tingle, his eyes rolling back into his head as a pleasurable feeling washed over his body. The feeling didn't last long though. Within moments the pleasure started to dissipate and was replaced by pain.

Pain shot through Kiba's leg, the slender metal needle in his leg feeling like a three inch wide pole impaling him. Kiba gritted his teeth and threw his head back, trying to hold back a scream. The pain was unbearable, and it was only a small needle stuck in his leg.

Noticing Kiba's pain, Kabuto kept the needle in his leg a moment longer before slowly pulling it out. He looking pityingly at the young man who was now writhing in pain. He couldn't imagine the pain Kiba was feeling but if his lab results were any indication then without a doubt it was worse then anything he had ever felt before. Unable to watch the pain on Kiba's face anymore, Kabuto turned to leave, explaining what he had just done to the pale man.

A twisted laugh echoed through the room, the pale man finding sick pleasure in what Kabuto told him. On the wall, Kiba was breathing heavily, the intense pain the needle had caused completely exhausting him. The pain was not gone yet though. The point where the needle had entered the skin now burnt, and all the old cuts and bruises the pale man had already caused felt like they were all being re inflicted at the same time.

"This is some interesting stuff," The pale man said as he made his way back to Kiba. His sadistic laugh prevalent, the terrible sound filling the room.

Kiba groaned, pain now flowing through his entire body. Soon the pain even shot threw his jaw, forcing him to unclench his teeth as the pressure was even becoming unbearable. Everything was starting to become pain. The rank air stinging his nostrils, the pale mans wretched laugh piercing his eardrums. Kiba's vision started to blur, loosing focus, barely able to make out the horrible scars on both his and the mans body and the blood pooling around his feet.

"Fuck!" Kiba yelled out as the pale man gently ran a blade across his leg. Even though the cut wasn't deep the pain was still unbearable, feeling like his entire leg was being torn to pieces.

"This stuff works fast doesn't it," The pale man said, removing the blade from Kiba's skin. "Increasing sensitivity and heightening the sense of pain by more then a hundred times. On top of that the drug contains some of the strongest 'truth' serum and paralyzes most of the bodies other functions so the only thing you'll be able to feel is the pain."

"I know what it does," Kiba snarled, breathing deeply, trying to calm himself. He had been the one that had been carrying it; just he had been intending to use it on a captured sound nin, not having it be used on himself.

"So do you intend on cooperating, I can end this pain at any second," The man asked one last time.

"Fuck you," Kiba growled before yelling out in pain as the pale man dug his blade all the way through Kiba's shoulder.

xx

"Hokage-sama I have important news," Shizune gasped out as she finally made it back to the Hokage's office. She had ran all the way back from the main gate and was considerably out of breath.

"What is it Shizune?" Naruto asked, rubbing his temples. He had had enough bad news to last him for a long time, but based on Shizune's complexion she was about to give him even more.

_You are going to fail everyone, you always have._

Naruto groaned and rubbed his temples even harder, he really didn't need this right now.

"Are you okay?" Shizune asked, noticing Naruto's behavior.

"I'm fine," Naruto responded, "What's the news?"

Shaking off her worry for Naruto temporarily, Shizune fumbled through all the documents she had in her hand and pulled out the letter from the sand, tossing it onto Naruto's desk for him to read. Naruto warily picked up the document and read it through.

"Shit," Naruto murmured when he realized what the document said. "When did we get this?"

"It just arrived moments ago, I brought it right to you," Shizune replied, still trying to catch her breath.

"Are you sure this is true?" Naruto questioned, "It could be forged to throw us off or worry us."

"It has the sands official seal on it, it is very unlikely its forged."

"Damn." Naruto muttered. This was bad and turned an already horrible situation into one that was much worse. "Get Shikamaru in here, we need to tell him about this."

"Yes, sir" Shizune said as she ran out the room in search of Shikamaru.

Naruto groaned one more time and reclined back in his chair looking over the document one more time, hoping he had misread. Why did everything have to happen right as he had become Hokage? This was starting to become too much, he couldn't take being cooped up in this small office all day. He rarely had been able to go out since he had become Hokage, let alone go on a mission.

Just moments after she had left Shizune returned, Shikamaru at her side. The shadow nin looked rather groggy and disheveled, the last few days having been very hard for him as well.

"What is it?" Shikamaru asked, little emotion in his voice.

"We just got a message from suna," Naruto started, looking back at the document one last time, checking to see he had read it right.

"And?" Shikmaru wasn't in the best mood, he didn't want to have to deal with Naruto's incompetencies again.

Naruto took a deep breath before continuing. "Well, the sand and the cloud have been in negotiations for a while, as you probably know. Basically, it looks like they have signed a peace treaty and have become allies."

Shikamaru gritted his teeth; this indeed could be bad. This meant that if the leaf and the cloud went to war, the sand would not be able to interfere at all. "Why would they sign something like that? Doesn't the sand know that the cloud is showing hostility towards us?"

"This treaty was signed several days before we found out the clouds intentions. Prior to that we have been pretty neutral with the cloud, the sand would have no reason to think that his may hurt us. They most likely were just protecting their best interests; they don't want to go to war either and the more allies the better."

Shikamaru gritted his teeth harder. Not only was this a bad situation, he couldn't even think straight anymore. Since when had Naruto ever been able to analyze a situation faster then him? He should have realized such obvious things instantly, instead of having to have Naruto explain them. It was that damn Temari, she was making him all messed up. Ino being sick was not helping much either.

"Shikamaru are you okay?" Naruto asked when his analysis was met with nothing but silence.

Shikamaru shook himself out of his daze and looked back up at Naruto. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay good. We have to figure out how this effects our plans."

"Yeah..." Shikamaru murmured. He sill couldn't really think straight, but he still realized what this would mean. While he never made a plan that relied to highly on an ally, he had always assumed that if needed, the sand could be their backup if a war did break out. At the current moment, they could handle the cloud on their own, as their numbers were much greater; but if things continued to degrade at the rate they were it might not be as easy to handle the cloud and any of their allies single handedly.

"Shikamaru what do you think-" Naruto was interrupted by a very urgent knock on the door. He groaned, what could it possibly be now? "Come in." He instructed.

Shino, Hinata and Akamaru crashed through the door, looking seriously troubled and out of breath. Hinata looked on the verge of tears and Shino looked mildly distressed, which was something considering the amount of emotion Shino normally showed. Akamaru looked the most disheveled out of all of them, practically frantic. On top of all this there was an odd lack of a certain Inuzuka teammate.

"What happened?" Naruto asked. They hadn't completed their mission yet, it shouldn't have been so easy. Or had they? Shino was rather smart and Hinata had Byukagan. He hadn't felt anything though, they couldn't possibly had finished. "Did you complete your mission?"

Akamaru started trying to bark something, attempting to talk, but he was still in too much of a frenzy to form any comprehensive words. The only word that Naruto was able to make out at all was 'Kiba'.

After a few deep breaths, Shino was ready to explain what had happened. They had ran all the way from the center of the sound country all the way back to Konoha at a pace he didn't even know he was capable of. Adrenaline was the only reason he wasn't falling over from exhaustion.

"We lost Kiba," Shino started, getting the most important part out of the way.

"He got killed?" Naruto asked, shocked, feeling a lump forming in his throat. He knew the mission was dangerous but he didn't think that one of them, especially as strong as Kiba, would get killed.

"He was captured by the enemy, we are not sure if he is alive or not," Shino answered. He believed Kiba was still alive, although how long he lasted was another matter.

"By Sasuke?" Nartuo whispered. He wouldn't forgive Sasuke if he started killing his friends.

_They will all die, there is nothing you can do._

Shino nodded. He was sure he had detected Sasuke's chakra in that tunnel. How Sasuke had managed to get in and capture Kiba before any of them could detect his presence was beyond him. Shino then continued to tell Naruto everything that had occurred on their short time away from Konoha. The tunnels that Sasuke had leading into Konoha. The condition of the villages in the sound country. The strange labs that they had found in the bases. How Kiba had been captured right under their noses and how he still had his scroll with him. Shino concluded it all by giving Naruto the odd coded paper they had found in one of the bases.

By the end Naruto had slumped forward and was resting his head on his hands, taking in everything he had just heard. This was all just too much too handle. First Ino and the disease, then the possible loss of one of their allies and now Kiba being captured as well everything that was happening in the sound country. Naruto just couldn't take it anymore.

"W-we have to rescue Kiba," Hinata stammered, unable to speak all too coherently from the shock of what had happened added to being in Nartuo's presense.

Naruto didn't respond, he remained in his slumped forward position, rubbing his head, trying to think of what to do. He had to do something about Kiba and Sasuke, but he still had things to deal with in Konoha. He had to at least make an attempt to save Kiba though. If he just rushed to where Sasuke was or sent men, Kiba would be killed. He wasn't even sure if he could find their location; the scroll hadn't been opened yet.

Getting frustrated by not being able to come up with a good plan, Naruto picked up the encrypted print out that Shino had given him. He couldn't decipher it at all though. He wasn't the best at puzzles like this and the code seemed to be incredibly complex.

"Do you think you can decipher this?" Naruto asked Shikamaru. The paper could give them some clue as to what Sasuke was doing or even his location. Although there was always a chance it was just a bunch of random symbols.

Shikamaru shrugged but took the paper from Naruto, looking it over. He didn't recognize it as any code he had ever seen, but it didn't seem too overly complicated. There was definitely a pattern to the symbols signifying a message, it was just a matter of getting enough time to break it.

"I can break it, I just need time," Shikamaru said, still looking over the printout. The only problem was that he most likely did not have time. He had to rethink many of his plans in light of the new information about the sand as well as deal with Ino and the disease and now it looked like he would have to do something about Kiba as well. And then there was always Temari. What would happen to them now. The Sand and the leaf were still allies but this new treaty with the cloud could cause tension.

"So what are we going to do about Kiba?" Shino asked, trying to get the subject back to what really mattered.

"I-I don't know," Naruto stammered. There wasn't much they could do now, not until he was sure of Sasuke's situation. "We just have to wait."

"What do you mean wait?" Shino demanded, "The longer we wait the higher the chance that he will be killed. Kiba still had the scroll on him when he was captured, can't you use that knowledge to do something? You're chakra was all over the scroll what was it for anyway?"

"There is nothing we can do right now. Please just wait a little longer, as soon as something can be done you'll be the first to know. I won't let Kiba die, trust me."

Akamaru growled visiously, not pleased with Naruto's answer. "We have to do something."

"There's nothing we can do yet, just wait a little," Naruto pleaded.

Akamaru growled even more threateningly. The only reason he had agreed to return to Konoha was because he was told Naruto was going to do something. If the blond haired brat wasn't going to do anything then he wasn't going to stay calm anymore. With ferocious speed Akamaru lunged at Naruto. Jumping over the desk, scattering the many papers laying on top of it all over the room.

Naruto was shocked by Akamaru's sudden movement. He quickly pushed himself back away from his desk barely missing being hit by Akamaru's first vicious bite. By the time Akamaru was about to attack again, Naruto was ready and he effortlessly caught Akamaru's snarling jaw in his left hand while using his other hand to grab just below Akamaru's neck, keeping the giant dogs claws at a safe distance.

Akamaru snarled at Naruto and struggled to break free, but to no avail. Naruto was too strong and had a firm grasp, rendering Akamaru completely motionless. Nonetheless Akamaru continued to struggle, he couldn't let someone who was just going to let Kiba die go unscathed. But the more Akamaru struggled the weaker he got, until what used to be a visious growl was now a soft purr. Slowly, the large dogs eyelids started to feel heavier and heavier until they completely closed and he fell into a deep sleep.

"Thank you Shizune," Naruto said as he lifted the now sleeping dog off of himself, pulling out the sleeping needle Shizune had shot Akamaru with in the process. He placed Akamaru down on his desk, pushing off more papers in the process, before slumping back, breathing a deep sigh. He didn't want to hurt the dog and he would definitely do something about Kiba: Akamaru just had the be patient.

"If you don't intend on doing anything then we will," Shino said as he walked forward to the desk, heaving the humongous dog off.

"Just listen to me," Naruto pleaded again, "I will do something. Don't throw your lives away so eagerly. You have completed your mission and you look exhausted, just go get some rest. As soon as something happens you will be the first to know, okay?"

Shino sighed, he couldn't just abandon his teammate but what Naruto had said was true. If they did go to rescue Kiba, they would either be killed or captured by Sasuke. And like Naruto had said, he was exhausted. Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, he could barely stay standing with Akamaru in his arms, let alone go and rescue Kiba.

"Fine, we will go and rest, but as soon as we are fully rested we will go after Kiba," Shino conceded partially. He nodded to Hinata and the two of them left the room, Akamaru still in Shino's arms.

Naruto breathed deeply. He had hated seeing how hurt Akamaru had been, and even how Shino had reacted. What he had decided was for the best though. Even if Kiba were to die, he wouldn't let his teammates die as well. No, he couldn't think like that. He wouldn't let Kiba die, he would save him and he would stop Sasuke.

_You will fail them. They will die and your selfishness will be at fault. _

Naruto grasped his head and gritted his teeth. He didn't need this. He reached into his desk and pulled out a bottle of pills, popping off the top and shoving two of them in his mouth.

"Hokage-sama, should I start formulating a plan and a team to rescue Kiba?" Shikamaru asked. He wasn't the best friends with Kiba, but it would hurt him if the dog boy died and he would do everything he could to save him.

"No," Naruto replied without a moments thought. "Continue what you were working on before and give that encoded printout a priority as well. If I need you, I'll call you." Naruto stood up and started to pick up the papers that had been knocked off the desk. Damn temperamental dog.

Shikamaru nodded, acknowledging Naruto's order. He took the printout and left the room, heading back to work. He headed back down the hall to the office he had been given. Was Naruto loosing his mind? He seemed oddly distant about the incident with Kiba. Had he finally lost it?

Back in the Hokage's office Naruto continued to pick up papers, now with the help of Shizune. With everything that had happened recently, Naruto wanted to go to bed and sleep for a week. He didn't think he could deal with anything more. But much to Naruto's dismay, not a minute after Shikamaru had left there was another knock on the door.

"Come in," Naruto sighed, not looking up from his papers as a young women, someone he had seen often at the hospital, came in.

"Sir, I have important news," The young women informed him.

"What is it?"

"Sir, we have had a couple people come to the hospital showing symptoms similar to the ones that have been rumored to being occurring where miss Sakura is."

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Remember to review. :)  



	14. Near

Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. I was on vacation and I couldn't find any time to write so I had to wait a little longer to finish this chapter. I'd just like to take a moment to thank everyone that has read my fic so far and enjoyed it and especially thank those that have reviewed and given me some tips on how to improve my writing. This fic officially has more then twice the number of reviews of my last fic in the same amount of chapters and is also getting really close to the 100 mark :D. Tell you guys what, make it to 100 reviews with this chapter (not too many more reviews to that) and I'll get the next chapter out much quicker :P.

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Chapter 13: Near 

Symbols, endless, meaningless symbols. That's all this was. Even after an hour of trying to decipher what they may mean, Shikamaru had gotten no where. Every time he thought he had found a break, it lead no where and he would be back where he had started. Yet even though he was going in circles, Shikamaru somehow felt something familiar in the symbols, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

With a sigh, Shikamaru tossed the paper onto his desk and reclined in his chair, examining the many symbols from a distance. Why was he even wasting his time with this? If Shino had really been able to find it as easily as he said he had, what useful information could this possibly contain?

Tossing aside the printout for the time being, Shikamaru went back to his other work. This didn't last long either as his mind started to wander. To Ino and her disease, to Temari and the baby and to Kiba and everything else that was happening. How was he supposed to work if he couldn't keep his mind in one place? What the hell was happening to him? This had never happened to him before, he had always been able to think even under the most intense situations, but all of a sudden he was drawing a blank.

Deciding that it was pointless to sit around and do nothing Shikamaru figured he would go on a walk to clear his head. He hadn't had much of a break since he had gotten this job. Every time he had gotten a break Temari had been there and being with her could be even more tiring then working. Temari. What was he going to do about her?

Right before Temari had left she seemed to think that he would do something. What had she even wanted him to do? Did she not want the baby or something? There really wasn't much he could do for her if that was what she had meant by 'help'. Had she wanted him to raise the baby? He couldn't just move to Suna, especially given his posostion in Konoha. In reality there wasn't much he could do. He could send money, although he was sure that Temari was well enough off financially being the sister of the Kazekage.

And then there was Ino. What could he do to help her? He was smart, but he wasn't a doctor. What could he do to save her? He couldn't cure whatever the disease was that she had. It wasn't like he could come up with some miraculous plan that would just get rid of the disease. There had to be something he could do, something, anything. He couldn't just let Ino die.

And then there was Kiba. He didn't have close a bond to Kiba as he had to Ino or Temari, but he had still known the man since they were in the academy and had been on numerous missions with him. In the situation Kiba was in he knew he definitely could do something to help Kiba, save him. But Naruto seemed adamant about not doing anything. Was he really just going to let Kiba die. He could come up with a plan to save Kiba is he chose to, there was nothing Naruto could do to stop him, but without Naruto's permission he wouldn't be able to execute it.

"Hey, Shikamaru, what are you doing here?"

Shikamaru jumped, he had been daydreaming and without realizing it he had made it all way to his old spot, where he used to come to watch clouds and relax. It looked like he wasn't the only one that had had this idea to come here and relax and reflect on everything that was happening, as Chouji was already here, sitting on the small bench, frowning up at him.

"Oh, hey Chouji. I just came here to take a break, I've been getting kind of stressed out with everything that has been happening recently," Shikamaru said as he sat down next to Chouji.

"So do you think she'll be okay?" Chouji asked. Naruto had personally informed him on Ino's current state and he hadn't been able to get it off his mind since. He, Shikamaru and Ino had all been on the same team since they were twelve and he thought of all of them as if they were his family. So predictably, the news about Ino had caused him, and apparently Shikamaru, a significant amount of anxiety.

"I don't know," was all Shikamaru could think to say. By this point in life he had realized that making promises that he couldn't keep were pointless. Telling Chouji that he was sure Ino would be fine would just make matters worse. Chouji wouldn't like being lied to. "I hope so."

"Yeah, me too," Chouji sighed. He wished he could do something for Ino, but he knew there was nothing someone like him could really do except be there and support her. But he wasn't even allowed to do that.

Both of the men sat quietly on the small platform in an awkward silence. Slowly their eyes traveled upwards, to the clouds. They both sat there for a long moment, starring at the fluffy white masses. It hadn't been something either of them had time to do in a long time, and in a way it was therapeutic.

"Remember when we were younger Ino would always get mad when we came here and skipped training to just relax and stare at the clouds," Shikamaru said, never taking his eyes off the sky.

Chouji chuckled, remembering the old days. "Yeah, she always got so mad. She thought we were just wasting our talents since I always came her and ate potato chips and you just slept."

"Yeah," Shikamaru sighed. "I remember those few times when she just lost it and set up traps on the way up here so that we couldn't get here and the traps ended up going off on some couple that came here to make out."

Chouji laughed again, remembering the incident. "Tsunade sure was pissed."

"Yeah."

"Remember the time she mind controlled your mom to try to get us to train?" Chouji asked, looking over at his friend. "You should have seen the look on your face, you were horrified."

"Hey, my mom is a scary women," Shikamaru defended. "My head still hurts from that time. She made my mom throw a book at me and it-"

Shikamaru stopped mid sentence, a shocked looked suddenly coming to his face. Chouji looked worriedly at his friend.

"Whats wrong?" Chouji asked, sitting up, worried Shikamaru was having a heart attack or something.

"I-I have to go," Shikamaru stammered as he bolted to his feet and ran down the stairs and back towards the Hokage tower, leaving a confused Chouji sitting under the clouds.

Shikamaru made it back to the building in record time and once inside immediately made his way to the Hokage's extensive library, one he doubted Naruto had even stepped foot inside. He quickly scanned the shelves looking for a certain book, praying that it was still there. To his relief, the book was still there, and he ripped it from the shelf before running back to his office.

Shikamaru had known he had seen those symbols somewhere, he just hadn't thought it was in something as obvious as this. Once he arrived back in his office Shikamaru slumped down into his chair and cracked open the book he had received. The book was one he had been forced to read many years ago by his dad, who had thought it could help him. It was a book on code breaking and contained records of all of Konoha's old code systems they had used in past wars that had all been broken or abandoned for a better one. At the time he had first read it, he had thought it was pointless. After all, when would he really ever need to break a code? And until now, he would have been correct.

Frantically, Shikamaru grabbed the encoded print out and started scribbling on it while reading out of the book. Could it really be this simple? Was this really encoded in one of Konoha's past coding systems? If it was then the information couldn't possibly be important. Either that or the people who had made this code were mocking them by using similar symbols.

After several long minutes of scribbling and decoding Shikamaru leaned back, looking down at his finished product.

"What the hell is this...?"

xx

Sakura sighed and took a step back from a patient she was treating. Wiping her brow with one of the few remaining clean towels, she took a moment to catch her breath and recompose herself. It had been exhausting last couple of days and she didn't know how much more she could take. With the disease spreading and Ino now being sick, Sakura really just wanted to get away from all of this.

"Miss Sakura, could I speak to you for a minute?"

Sakura turned to face the doctor, one of the few remaining people in this village that was still uninfected and as far as she could tell, did not hate her.

"Yeah, sure, what is it?"

"I did as you said, the water factory that the river leads to should be dammed by now and the water flow contained," The doctor started.

"Good, that's really good," Sakura responded. This was the closest thing to good news she had gotten in a while. "Is there anything else?"

"Well, it's about Ino," the doctor murmured, knowing this would be a sore spot for Sakura.

"What about her?"

"Well, like I said I would I've asked some of the nurses to take special care of her but like everyone else she hasn't been getting any better. I'm afraid if things don't turn around soon, she will be dead within ten hours if she is very lucky."

xx

Naruto rushed through the halls of the hospital, following the young women who had come to get him. The hospital was a place Naruto could easily go without, he had spent far too much of his childhood in this place and he was rather reluctant to come back to it.

"You may want to put this on," The women said, holding out a surgical mask to Naruto.

"Why?"

"Just as a precaution."

Naruto nodded and took the mask, placing it over his mouth. They had arrived at the room and with a tinge of fear, Naruto entered. Inside he was met with a horrific scene, one that Sakura had seen many times. Two of Konoha's elderly citizens lay ill in adjacent beds, both in a cold sweat with red rashes on their exposed chests. Naruto recognized them both instantly. One of them, an elderly man, owned a restaurant in town. The other, an elderly women, used to be a shinobi for the hidden leaf, she had lived to know all six of the hokages.

"How did this happen?" Naruto asked, walking over to the older womens side to get a better look at her and then to to man.

"We have gotten reports from Sakura detailing symptoms of the disease she is dealing with there and they match them almost exactly," a nurse responded, "According to her reports the most likely source of the disease is in the water."

"So then shouldn't they have stopped it before the disease got here?" Naruto asked. "If they know where the disease is, then how come Sakura hasn't been able to cure it?"

"We're not sure," the nurse replied. "She has been doing everything she can but the disease is something unlike we have ever seen before and she is having a very difficult time dealing with it."

"That doesn't sound like Sakura. I haven't ever seen an injury or sickness that she hasn't been able to deal with," Naruto said, still looking over the two sick elderly citizens of Konoha.

"Regardless, these people are still sick and if the disease spreads here like it did there we don't have the facilities to deal with it."

Naruto bit his lip. He couldn't let this disease destroy Konoha. There had to be something he could do, if only something that could buy Sakura some time so she could find a cure for this disease. But what could he do? He knew nothing of medicine and if Sakura, the best doctor he knew could neither cure nor contain the disease then what could anyone here do?

"Hokage sir, what do you propose we do?" The nurse asked.

"Do everything you can for these people and try to keep these sicknesses secret, we don't want a panic." Naruto said as he shook he head, trying to clear his mind.

"Yes sir, we won't tell anyone that does not already know," the nurse replied as she went back to tending to one of the patients.

"Thank you," Naruto said, taking one last look at the two sick konoha citizens before leaving the room. Even though he wanted to stay and help these two, there wasn't anything he could do for them and he had other work he had to attend to. In a brisk walk, Naruto hurried back to his office.

"Ino, Kiba, Sakura...everyone. You better be alright."

xx

Shino and Hinata walked slowly down the street towards their respective households. Akamaru still sleeping lightly in Shino's arms. Though they were both exhausted they were hesitant to return to their residences to sleep. It felt as if they were abandoning their teammate by just shrugging off their responsibility to rescue him to go and sleep. Without a doubt, wherever Kiba was, he would not be able to sleep peacefully.

In Shino's arms Akamaru stirred, shifting awkwardly in the Aburames firm hold. He whimpered softly, his eyelids inching open slightly before falling back down, drowsiness still overcoming him. The sleeping medicine that Shizune had injected him with had been light and added to the dogs large stature and the short exposure he had to the needle, the medicine was quickly wearing off.

"What should we do with him?" Shino asked, stopped to lay the large dog down on a bench. Inside him, his bugs buzzed wearily, he was completely exhausted of chakra and as a direct effect his bugs could no longer function properly. He was glad that Akamaru was starting to awaken, he doubted he could carry the beast another foot.

"I don't know," Hinata whispered in response. They couldn't just leave Akamaru alone or leave him at Kiba's house; there was no telling what he would do when he regained his strength. It would be difficult to take care of him on their own, as they didn't have food for him and he would undoubtebly become hard to manage. That meant their only option was...

"I'll take him back to Kiba's mom for the time being," Hinata said. It was really their only option at the moment. They would bring Akamaru back to Inuzaka land and let them take care of him while they waited for the right time to try and save Kiba.

"Are you sure you want to Hinata?" Shino asked worriedly. It would be very awkward for her to show up at Kiba's parent's house with their sons dog but not their son. Even though most of the parents of Konoha were trained Shinobi and knew how to deal with loss it would nonetheless be unpleasant for Hinata.

Hinata nodded, helping a now barely conscious Akamaru off of the bench. "I need to do this."

Shino frowned. It would be pointless and a waste of effort to try and convince her to let him do it or at least let him come. He knew that there was a bond between Kiba and Hinata that he did not have with either and that she felt it was important to do this, by whatever reasoning. "I'll meet you at our normal meeting place tomorrow." Shino said before turning to head to his own house.

Hinata and Akamaru were now alone, standing next to a bench, an awkward silence developing between them. Akamaru was still struggling to stay awake from a combination of the drugs in his system and exhaustion from the mission. His head dropped occasionally as he momentarily lost consciousness and his legs quivered, barely keeping his large form standing.

"Let's go Akamaru, we have to get you back," Hinata said as she placed her hand on the dogs side near his neck and started to walk, leading him a long with her.

The walk didn't take long. Even at their slow pace they had only been a short distance from the Inuzaka's land when they had started and had made the distance quickly. Hinata knocked on the front door weakly, hoping that someone inside would hear.

While she waited for a response Hinata felt her pulse rising, a familiar nervous sweat covering her body. She had met Kiba's mom several times before but she still wasn't quite sure how the women felt about her. Kiba undoubtedly talked to his mother about her and she was pretty sure that Kiba spoke positively about her yet she still sometimes got the feeling that the Inuzaka women didn't like her.

Regardless of Tsume's feelings towards her, Hinata still felt she had to do this. Kiba had done so much for her since they had met when team eight had been formed. He had helped her improve and more then even her own family he had believed in her. Even if she couldn't get everyone else to recognize her she always knew that Kiba had believed in her from the beginning. Even if she wasn't strong enough to save Kiba right now, she would do everything she could for him, even if it was just making sure that Akamaru got home safely.

After a few minutes there was no answer. With every passing minute Hinata got more and more nervous, worried that she had failed Kiba, even if Tsume being absent was not her fault. Akamaru had fallen asleep again during the wait, curling up into a ball behind Hinata. Finally, as the anxiety of waiting was becoming too much for Hinata and she was about to depart the door opened, revealing an annoyed Tsume.

"What is it, I was sleeping," Tsume barked. "Oh it's you." She continued when she saw Hinata standing on the porch. "What do you want?"

Hinata gulped and opened to her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Tsume was clearly not in a good mood, she looked exhausted and had obviously either just returned from a long mission or some other type of difficult work and was in no mood to talk, let alone hear bad news about her son.

"What is it?" Tsume asked again when Hinata did not respond. Glancing down, she noticed the large familiar white dog laying behind Hinata. "Oh, Akamaru. I thought you all were supposed to be on a mission for a long time, what are you doing back so soon?"

Again Hinata opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. She was starting to get choked up seeing Kiba's mom and she was worried if she spoke she would break down. Normally in situations like this Kiba would be there for her, but this time he wasn't and she was starting to fall apart.

"What's wrong with you?" Tsume asked when Hinata still did not respond. "Where's Kiba? Why are you even here?"

As Tsume's expression went from annoyance to worry Hinata started to find it even harder to keep herself together, let alone speak. She had to do this though, for Kiba. She had to prove that she could be strong on her own, even if it was just telling a bit of bad news. If she couldn't do this how could she save Kiba or prove herself to anyone.

"Where the hell is my son?!"

xx

"So are you going to cooperate?" The pale man asked, taking a step back from the bloody mess that Kiba now was.

"N-no" Kiba stammered. It was becoming difficult to talk. Everything was become distance and blurry. His voice echoed in his head and he could barely think straight enough to even manage one word. With almost all his senses becoming fogged the few remaining ones intensified. He was now incredibly aware of everything touching his body, the many scars, cut and bruises on his body burned. What remained of his shirt felt heavy on his shoulders, his pants weighing him down, the blood soaked fabric not very apparently sticking to his leg. The searing, unbearable pain in his shoulder where the man had stabbed him and left the knife. The few salty tears that he couldn't help but shed because of the pain. And then there was the pale mans voice, deep and reverberant, the noise pounding into his head.

"That's too bad, because with that stuff in you you'll do what ever I tell you," the pale man laughed

Kiba bit his lip momentarily but when the normal dull pain this caused was instead replaced with an intense jolt he quickly withdrew his fang to just rest on his bottom lip. What the man said was true, with that much of that crap in his system he wouldn't be able to stop himself from telling the man whatever he wanted.

"It's also really too bad that there is nothing I want to know from you," the pale man whispered. "I have no intentions of helping Sasuke. I only agreed to do this to have a little fun and I'm getting bored. I think its about time we end this..."

"Yeah, about time..." Kiba managed to mutter before yelling out in pain again as the pale man ripped the blade from his shoulder.

"So how do you want to go?" The man asked as he twirled the blade around in his hand. "Abdominal wound? A small incision in your jugular? We could always cut a nice gash in your colon. And then there is also blood loss. You could watch as I peel the skin from your bones..."

The pale mans sadistic rant was cut short as the lone door in the room creaked open, revealing Sasuke standing on the other side.

"Get out," Sasuke ordered, motioning for the pale man to leave.

"Sir, I've almost gotten what I want, give me another few min-"

"Out. Now. You are no longer needed," Sasuke interrupted as he took a few steps into the room.

The pale man frowned, not pleased with having to take orders from someone he hated so deeply. But Sasuke was not someone to disobeyed and as such the pale man complied with Sasuke's orders; leaving the room, turning back to smirk at Kiba one last time before he exited. The Konoha nin was could possibly be very unlucky; if Sasuke was in a bad mood what he could do to you was far worse then anything a blade or any normal weapon could inflict.

As the pale man left the room he closed the door, leaving Sasuke and Kiba in complete darkness. Sasuke frowned, but with a quick hand signal a horizontal line on the back wall of the cell erupted into flames, illuminating the whole room.

Sasuke was not in the mood to waste time so as soon as the room had become lit he reached into his robe and pulled out a see through bag and held it in front of Kiba's face. "What is this?"

Kiba's vision was still blurry but he was still able to make out what Sasuke held in his hand. In the plastic bag that the Uchiha held in his hand lay the scroll the Naruto had ordered him to bring to Sasuke.

"It's a message," Kiba muttered in response. He wouldn't be able to lie now even if he wanted to, but at the current moment, there really was no reason to lie.

"What is it for and why is it loaded with Naruto's chakra."

"It's for you, other then that I know nothing."

Sasuke frowned. He wasn't pleased with this answer but Kiba was telling the truth, he had to. He still wasn't sure that opening the scroll, or even touching it was safe. But if Naruto had risked his friends lives to deliver it whatever was in the scroll must be important. Would Naruto really be able to set a trap he couldn't beat? The entire time Sasuke had been examining the scroll he couldn't help but feel a familiarity in the chakras nature in the scroll, but he just couldn't put his finger on what exactly it was. The best option Sasuke could think of was just to dispose of the scroll, but he was human and curiosity was getting the best of him. But if it wasn't safe for him to open the scroll then the only option was...

In a matter of seconds Sasuke had made it behind Kiba and cut the ropes that bound his arms togethor behind the chair. He didn't have to worry about Kiba trying anything, there was nothing an injured dog like him could do in a situation like this.

"Hold out your hands," Sasuke ordered as he made his way back in front of Kiba.

Kiba complied, weakly lifting his arms, cringing as pain shot all throughout his body as Sasuke tossed the bag into his hands. Even the small weight of the scroll was enough to cause enormous pain, added to immense amount of pain already caused by moving an arm that had had its muscles almost completely torn to pieces.

"Take out the scroll."

Again Kiba complied, slowly lifting his arm up to reach into the bag, forming a loose grip on the tightly wound scroll. As soon as he touched the scroll he could feel Naruto's chakra rush through his body.

"Open it." Sasuke demanded. He brought himself into a defensive stance, ready to move if the scroll really did contain anything explosive or dangerous.

Getting dizzier and more disoriented by the moment, Kiba fumbled with the scroll in his hand and brought his finger to the opening flap. He hesitated for a moment, he was prepared for death, but now that he had this scroll in his hands and he could feel Naruto's chakra pulsing in it he almost got a sense of hope.

"I said open it," Sasuke repeated, irritated by Kiba's slow motions.

And without another moments hesitation, Kiba peeled away the outer flap and unrolled the scroll.

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Remember, getting to 100 total reviews on this chapter means quicker update :P 


	15. Cure

Thanks for over 100 reviews, keep them coming please :). This chapter is a little shorter then average, but it is very eventful. Hope you like it.

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Chapter 14: Cure 

Having lost several pints of blood and a high dosage of a very potent drug circulating in what little blood was still in his body was making it very difficult for Kiba to concentrate. Looking down at the now opened scroll, Kiba felt his vision come in and out of focus as he tried to read the message the scroll appeared to contain. After several long moments of looking, Kiba hadn't been able to make out anything, only a few words here and there.

"What does it say?" Sasuke asked, still staying a few feet away, wary of the scroll.

"I-I don't know, I can't read it," Kiba stammered. He could barely speak anymore, more of his blood was on the ground then was in his body.

"I always knew you weren't too bright Inuzaka, but I at least figured you could read," Sasuke mocked. Curiosity was getting the best of him and now that the scroll was open and right in front of him, Sasuke was finding he was loosing his patience.

"Fuck you," Kiba muttered. After being tortured for hours on end, Kiba wasn't going to let himself be insulted by this asshole.

With the scroll still loosely gripped in his hands, the unrolled parchment hanging on his legs, Kiba attempted to lift the scroll higher so he could try to read it, but as he did so a pain shot all through his arm as all the places he been stabbed and sliced before lit up in a fiery pain. With a muffled scream, Kiba let his arms drop down on his side, letting the scroll fall down to the ground.

"Idiot..." Sasuke whispered, looking down at the crumpled up scroll on the ground. "Pick it up, Kiba."

Kiba didn't respond. He was barely about to retain consciousness at the current moment, let alone speak. His head fell limply forward, his chin resting on his chest.

"Tch." Sasuke took a step forward, looking down at the bloody mess the scroll was now sitting in. With his sharingan activated, he examined the scroll one last time. Because of the way it was crumpled on the ground he couldn't read it, but if he could figure out what traps it contained if any he could figure out the best way to read it. It was then, in that examination, that Sasuke realized what the scroll was.

"Naruto, you're such a moron," Sasuke muttered as he picked up the scroll, unraveling it to read the contents.

After a long moment of reading, Sasuke lowered to scroll, looking over it down at Kiba. "Do you want to know why Naruto risked your teams life and why you are going to loose yours?"

Kiba didn't respond. He sat motionless in his chair, arms loosely at his side. His breathing light and staggered, forced and difficult.

"You still with me mutt?"

"Fuck you," was all Kiba was able to whisper with the little remaining strength he had.

"So you don't want to know?

Kiba remained silent again. He did want to know. He wanted to know what had been so important that in all likelihood he was going to die so that Sasuke could see it. And based on Sasuke's reaction to what he had read, he really was going to die in vain.

"I take that as you don't care." Sasuke concluded, turning to leave.

"Tell me," Kiba coughed out, stopping Sasuke from leaving.

"I thought you'd want-" Sasuke started to say but was cut off as the scroll he still held in his hands started to smoke. "A little anxious aren't we Naruto."

The scroll started to smoke more and Sasuke held it for a moment longer before tossing at the wall where the scroll exploded in a cloud of smoke. Kiba mustered up some of his last remaining energy to tilt his head away, keep the smoke from getting in his eyes and mouth. When he turned back, Sasuke was gone, disappeared in the cloud of smoke.

It took only a moment for the smoke to dissipate and Kiba looked in anxiously, wondering what had happened. The first figure that appeared out of the smoke with Sasuke. He was close to the wall were he had thrown the scroll and he had drawn his sword, the blade currently digging deeply into the wall. Kiba couldn't make out what Sasuke had aimed at but there was definitely something else there.

"Did you really think this would work, Naruto?" Sasuke asked. When he had realized what the scroll was it was easy to figure out what to do. When the scroll had started to smoke he had drawn his sword and now he had the blade dug through two feet of concrete and certain blond ninjas shoulder.

As the smoke completely cleared, Kiba saw what had happened. Sasuke now had Naruto pinned to the wall, his sword now piercing through the blond shinobis shoulder. Naruto stood motionless on the wall, paralyzed by the chakra Sasuke was forcing through his sword. Blood leaked out of the gaping wound, dripping down onto the ground below.

"Sasuke..." Naruto whispered, looking at the man he had spent many years of his life looking for.

"Is this what you had planned?" Sasuke asked, smirking at Naruto who was now trying to move and escape. "It's pointless, you're whole body is paralyzed."

Despite Sasuke's warning Naruto continued to squirm. It was then that he noticed Kiba, tied up and bloody, on the brink of death. "I won't let you get away with this, Sasuke."

"There's nothing you can do now, it's over, Naruto."

Orange chakra now started to pour from Naruto's form, engulfing him. His eyes turned red, a new fire in them. With this new energy, Naruto slowly started to lift his hand, fighting against the paralysis Sasuke was causing.

"Too slow," Sasuke cried as he shifted his weight and brought his sword down, tearing through Naruto's heart and many of his other vital organs, the sword exiting Naruto's body low on his side, blood spurting out of the massive wound.

"Naruto!" Kiba yelled out, temporalily ignoring the intense pain this caused.

Sasuke sheathed his sword as he watched Naruto fall to the ground in a bloody heap. "Idiot," was all he could say as he watched Naruto's body explode in a cloud of smoke.

"W-what the hell," Kiba stammered as Naruto's body disappeared.

"Do you really not understand what just happened?" Sasuke asked, turning back to Kiba. "The reason the scroll was so packed with Naruto's chakra was because it _was_ Naruto. He created a clone of himself and make it transform into this scroll. It's really quite impressive, I didn't think he had the chakra control to maintain a clone for such an extended period of time."

Kiba remained silent, letting what Naruto had done sink in. Had Naruto really thought that this would work? What had he been planning to do, there was no way a clone would be able to beat Sasuke. "So what was on the scroll?" Kiba asked, deciding not to think to deeply into what Naruto had planned with the clone.

"I'll give you a hint," Sasuke said, as he bent down looking into Kiba's eyes as he activated his sharingan.

"W-What are you do-" Kiba said. He stopped as he realized that Sasuke was no longer in front of him. Kiba blank, confused by his sudden change of location. He was no longer in that miserable dark room, and he was no longer bound to a chair, bleeding out of every part of his body. He was standing unscathed back in Konoha, in the Hokage's office, the fifth standing in front of him.

"Tsunade!" Kiba yelled excitedly, surprised to see his old leader yet again. But to his dismay, Tsunade did not respond, she continued to sit at her desk, engrossed in her work. "Wait, this is..."

This was an illusion. Sasuke was showing him one his memories and he was trapped in it. Realizing what was happening, Kiba took a moment to examine the scene he was witnessing. Tsunade was sitting at her desk doing paperwork with Shizune standing next to her, attempting to assist. Other the that the room seemed normal and Sasuke was nowhere to be found.

Just then Sasuke walked through the door. He was seventeen years old at this time and he wore a white robe with the same sword he had now. He was bloody, apparently having just been in a fight and in his hand he held a Konoha forehead protector with a scratch across it.

"Sasuke!" Tsuande exclaimed, surprised by the sudden appearance of someone who had not been to the village since he betrayed it five years before. "What are you doing here?"

"Tsunade, I would like to request being readmitted as a Konoha shinobi," Sasuke replied flatly, emotionless. He had completed his mission that he had left the village to complete, he had exacted his revenge, and now he wanted to return to the village to resurrect his clan that had been so cruelly taken from him.

"Sasuke," Tsuande started, puassing, now wanting to say what she had to next. "I'm afraid we can't allow you to return."

Out of thin air, several ANBU members appeared around Sasuke, Kunais and swords drawn, ready to attack at any moment. Two of them had used wire to bind Sasuke and now held the wire tightly not letting him escape.

"You have betrayed the village and that is not something we can easily forgive. The council has issued and order for your arrest and possible execution for your treason."

The ANBU men moved closer to Sasuke, reaching out to grab him.

"You are making a mistake," Sasuke said, still emotionless.

"I'm sorry Sasuke," Tsunade responded solemnly.

The ANBU members had reached Sasuke now and just as one of them reached out to grab him the battle was over. Sasuke broke out of the wires and before anyone knew what was happening all of the ANBU members lay bloody on the floor, groaning from the wounds Sasuke had caused.

"You will regret this," Sasuke said as he disappeared in a puff of black smoke, leaving a shocked Tsunade and several wounded ANBU members on the ground.

Kiba watched the scene unfolding in front of him in horror. Had this really been what had happened? Had Sasuke really returned to the village and been turned away? He had never heard of this. Could all of this have been avoided if Tsunade had just let Sasuke come back? As Kiba watched Sasuke disappear the illusion started to break and the world started to fade.

"So do you know what was on that scroll now?" Sasuke asked, stepping back as the illusion faded. He held a needle in his hand, whatever fluid it had contained already having been injected.

All the pain that had been lost when he had went into the illusion now all came flooding back as Kiba came back to reality. Even after what he had just seen, he still wasn't quite sure what the scroll said.

"You really are slow," Sasuke muttered as Kiba shook his head. "It was a pardon."

"A pardon?"

"Yes, a pardon. You know what that is, right?" Sasuke mocked.

"Fuck you, I'm not that stupid," Kiba spat back at Sasuke. He knew what a pardon was. Had Naruto really pardoned Sasuke of all the crimes that he had committed against Konoha? "So are you going to go back to Konoha?"

"It's too late for that," Sasuke replied coldly. Sasuke turned now, heading for the door. "I'm leaving now, this is goodbye Kiba." Sasuke left the room, closing the door behind him, leaving Kiba once again in the dark.

"Can I finish now?" The pale man asked as Sasuke exited the room into the hallway. He had waited the entire time Sasuke had been in the room, anxious to finish what he had started.

"I'm leaving now. If you want to live it is in your best interest to leave as well," Sasuke replied.

"But what about him?" The pale man asked, pointing at the room.

"Leave him, we're finished with him," Sasuke replied as he continued down the hallway, leaving the pale man furious behind him.

With a grunt, the pale man obeyed Sasuke and followed him away.

Kiba sat alone in the room now. His mind was racing with all the information he just received but even still he was getting more and more drowsy by the minute. The edge of his vision was becoming clouded and it was becoming harder and harder to breath. Was this it? Kiba was expecting at any minute for the pale man to come back into the room and finish what he had started but after Sasuke had left the door had remained close, no one else entering.

Kiba then realized that Sasuke had not redone his hand restraints and that he was no longer bound. He hadn't heard Sasuke lock the door, if he could undo the rest of his restraints he could escape. Quickly, Kiba bent down to undo the restraints—too quickly—as when Kiba bent down he became light headed and lost his balance falling over onto the floor.

Kiba yelled out as the pain from impacting the floor was excruciating, the poison he had been injected with by Kabuto was still in effect. Now on the ground, Kiba tried to undo the bonds again but couldn't muster up enough strength to move.

Was this it?

Was he going to die here?

Kiba laughed at himself for the current state he was in. His vision was graying out more and more with every passing moment and he no longer had any control over any part of his body. Kiba laughed again, at least he had completed his mission, even if it appeared to be a failure. And with one last laugh Kiba lost consciousness, drifting off into darkness.

xx

Naruto sat at his desk, and like he had been far too often over the past few weeks, he rubbed his temples and groaned, not wanting to be having to deal with everything that was going on. He didn't want to have to deal with this disease and Ino, he didn't want to have to deal with the threat of war, and he didn't want to have to deal with Sasuke and Kiba being captured.

If only there was some magic solution to everything. If only all these problems would just solve themselves. But that wouldn't happen. He would have to solve all the problems, and if he didn't then people would end up dieing.

Naruto was brought out of his own head by a sudden knock on the door. Before he could even answer the door swung open and Shikamaru rushed through.

"Naruto, I have something really important I have to show you," Shikamaru rambled out.

"W-what is it?" Naruto stammered, still a little shocked by Shikamaru's abruptness.

"The paper. The encrypted paper. I decoded it," Shikamaru said.

"So what does it say?"

"It's an antidote, well directions on how to make one at least," Shikamaru replied, holding out the paper that he had decoded.

"Are you serious? What is it for?" Naruto asked as he looked at the paper. Sure enough, it contained directions on how to fabricate what the paper called "the antidote."

"I'm not sure," Shikamaru responded. "But Shino said he found it in a lab where they were doing experiments in the sound country. Hinata's descriptions of the bodies was very similar to what Sakura's description of the bodies who are infected. I think it may be an antidote for that."

"Then bring this to the ho-"

This feeling. Sasuke had opened the scroll. Kiba... Kiba was still alive, but barely. This was bad.

Naruto was up and heading out the door in an instant. Leaving a very confused Shikamaru behind him.

"Weird," Shikamaru muttered. He figured Naruto enough about this to at least stay and hear what he had to say. "Shizune, do you think you can make this and test it?"

Shizune, who had been standing in the corner through this whole ordeal, walked over and picked up the decoded paper that Naruto had dropped when he had darted out of the room. She examined it, making note of each ingredient. She had traveled and worked under Tsunade for many years and as such was a very talented doctor. "Yes, I think I can handle making this, I can have it done in less then an hour if I can get the proper ingredients."

"Okay, good, get started immediately, I'm sure thats why Naruto would have done if he hadn't run out..."

Shizune nodded and exited the room as well to get to work, leaving a still confused Shikamaru alone in the office.

"What the hell had he been in such a rush to do." Shikamaru wondered. Whatever it was it wasn't anything he should worry about now, he had other work to do still. Shaking his, Shikamaru left the room, heading back to his office to get back to work.

Naruto was already out of Konoha and heading towards where Sasuke and Kiba were. The scrolls he had given to each of the members of team eight were one of his kage bunshins, and when Sasuke had opened the one he had gotten from Kiba and killed that kage bunshin he got all of that clones memories. What Sasuke had done to it. Kiba's current condition. And from another jutsu he had put on each scroll, he now knew where Sasuke was.

He had to hurry now. If he waited to long or went to get other shinobi to form a team, Sasuke would be gone by the time he got there and Kiba would be dead.

So with this in mind, Naruto took off at blistering speeds towards where he would find Kiba and Sasuke—or at least he hoped he would. With any luck he would at least be able to save Kiba, but in all likelihood, Sasuke would just kill him before Naruto got there. Sasuke had also gotten his message and Naruto hoped that would be enough to stop all this.

Six years ago when Sasuke had returned, he had so many criminal charges against him that he had been turned away, not being allowed back into the village. But when Naruto had become Hokage, he had to power to issue a full pardon and now if Sasuke wanted to return to Konoha, he would be able to. He just hoped that Sasuke would accept this and come back, although based on his actions towards the kage bunshin this was not going to be the case.

Now Naruto had to stop Sasuke and save Kiba at any cost.

* * *

Hope you liked this chapter. And everyone does happen for a reason so keep that in mind when considering what happened in this chapter (if that makes any sense). 


	16. Death

Well here is the next chapter. There wasn't much response for last chapter, which is okay, but I'd really like to know what you thought, even if you didn't like it. I can take some criticism, its the only way I can get better. I'd really like to know what you think about this chapter especially, so please review and tell me :).

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Chapter 15: Death 

Temari breathed a deep sigh of relief as Suna finally came into view after three long days of travel. Normally the trip wasn't so bad, even when she did have to make the whole thing on her own, but this time the trip was miserable. She just couldn't keep her mind from wandering back to what had happened in Konoha and what inevitably would happen in Suna. The anxiety of thinking about all this over three days with no one to talk to had started to get to her and now she was glad she had finally arrived in Suna; even if that meant she would now have to deal with Gaara.

Standing on one of the last tree's before the environment turned completely to desert, Temari took a few deep breathes to recompose herself and took a long drink of water before heading on. Now that Suna was in view, some of the anxiety from making the trip along and thinking about Konoha was dissipating. It was comforting to have something familiar in view after looking at the seemingly endless unfamiliar forest between Konoha and Suna. But now that Suna was in view, Temari was hesitating to move forward. It was comforting to see her home, but the thought of actually go back to it and dealing with her brother wasn't something she was looking forward to.

Regardless of if she was looking forward to it or not, Temari knew she couldn't just sit and look at Suna forever. So after finishing her drink, Temari started the last short leg of her trip.

The journey from here didn't take long. Now that Temari was back in the desert she could use the winds to blow her on faster and the she traveled the remainder of the journey in only a few hours.

Being back in Suna was a relief, and Temari wasn't about to ruin the moment by getting lectured by her brothers. So knowing that going anywhere near the town hall would lead to this, Temari decided to head to the town center to get a good meal before dealing with her brother. It had been three days since she'd had a good meal and Temari was fairly certain that with a baby growing inside her stealing a lot of what she ate, eating enough was important. So with this in mind Temari headed for the nearest restaurant.

"And were do you think you're going?"

Temari cringed as she heard this line. Slowly she turned around to find one of her brothers, the slightly more sane one, Kankuro, behind her.

"Gaara is pretty annoyed with you," Kankuro said, a conceited smile across his face. "You were supposed to be back at latest a few days ago and now you turn up days later and you aren't even going to drop by to say how you're doing?"

"I was just going to get some food, is that a crime?" Temari snarled back, "I was going to stop by right after. He's already waited a few days, whats another hour?"

"Well regardless of what you had planned you're coming with me; if Gaara finds out that I found you and I didn't bring you to him he'd have my head as well as yours."

"Whatever," Temari muttered, gritting her teeth as she followed Kankuro back to the Kazekage's office. It was pointless to argue, she knew she should have checked in with Gaara as soon as she got back and now that Kankuro had found her there was no point in resisting it any longer.

"I had to do a lot of your work when you were gone you know?" Kankuro said as they arrived at Gaara's office. "You owe me."

"Yeah, fine," Temari muttered as the two of them walked in to the room.

Gaara looked up from his work as the door opened, frowning when he saw who it was. He had ordered Temari to make it to Konoha, complete her mission and return as quickly as possible, which should have taken a week at most. Yet she had been gone for nearly two without so much as a word why. Gaara wasn't one to get worried about his siblings safety, they could handle themselves, but in annoyed him when they so openly disobeyed his orders.

"Look who I found just wandering around town," Kankuro smirked as they entered the room.

"You're late," Gaara said plainly, looking back down at his work.

"Yeah sorry, about that..." Temari replied, rubbing the back of her head, "Their new Hokage was a little busy and it kind of took a little longer."

"Yeah right," Kankuro scoffed, "More like you wanted more time with your-"

"Shut up Kankuro," Temari growled, elbowing her brother in the stomach.

Kankuro groaned, doubling over in pain. "What was that for?" Kankuro yelled as he lunged at Temari.

"Stop it." Gaara ordered, stopping the fight before it happened.

"Damnit Gaara, let me go," Kankuro muttered, trying to free himself from the sand Gaara had trapped him in. His brother might not have that demon inside him anymore but he still didn't seem all too stable and Kankuro wasn't in the mood to get crushed by sand.

"Don' fight."

"Yeah, yeah, just let me go!"

Kankuro swore under his breath as the sand retreated, brushing off the sand that got stuck in his clothes. Temari did the same. Trust Kankuro to get them both nearly killed after only a minute with their brother.

"So Temari, why were you late in returning? I specifically ordered you to-"

Temari groaned loudly, clutching at her stomach, falling to her knees as the pain started to get worse.

"I didn't add any pressure to the sand, you shouldn't be hurt," Gaara said, frowning as he watched his sister fall to her knees.

"This some act to get out of trouble? If so, its pathetic," Kankuro sneered.

Temari ignored them. The pain kept getting worse and worse, it felt like her stomach was about to explode. Was this because of the baby? Temari knew that pregnancy wasn't exactly a comfortable experience, but she didn't expect it to hurt this much this early.

"Temari are you okay?" Kankuro asked, becoming worried when his sister didn't respond to his snide remark.

Again Temari didn't respond, she remained doubled over, clutching at her stomach. The pain was becoming unbearable. Knowing her family, the baby was probably like Gaara and was just waiting till it was strong enough to kill her.

"Temari?"

Temari covered her mouth as she a cough fit erupted from her, intensifying the already intense pain in her stomach. With a groan she looked down at her hand which was now completely covered in her blood.

"Shit" Temari murmured as the room started to spin and she collapsed on the ground.

"Temari!"

xx

Shizune rushed through her lab, grabbing ingredients and equipment as she concocted this supposed antidote as quickly as she could. For the most part, the ingredients were very common ones that she kept very readily stocked and mixing them was proving to be just as easy. With any luck she would have it done within minutes and then it was just a matter of testing it.

The testing would most likely prove to be the most difficult part. Time was a huge factor at the current moment and there was no telling how long it would take for the antidote to go to work. Shizune had taken several blood samples from both of the patients and planned to test on these first before testing it on real subjects. The only problem with this is she wasn't quite sure what she should look for to see if the antidote was indeed working.

Using reports she had received from Sakura and Ino she had been able to locate what they supposed was the virus. The two medic nins had reported that it was very difficult to locate the disease as it was very small and appeared to decompose on its own if taken out of the body for too long. Shizune had been able to locate this black substance that they called the disease, as Konoha had much better equipment then the town Sakura was operating in. But even if she had been able to easier locate the disease, like they had said, it was decomposing on its own at a rather startling rate. Even when she did add the antidote to the blood there was no way to tell if the diseases disappearance was because of its own natural decay or because of the externally added antidote.

Regardless of her doubts though, Shizune had to try. By this time she had completed the first batch of the antidote and now had to test it. The directions that Shikamaru had decoded had even said the recommended dosage needed, which luckily was a very small amount, meaning each batch could create almost twenty antidotes.

Measuring out of the small amount of the fluid she had created needed, Shizune held her breath as she poured the antidote into the contaminated blood and peered through the eyepiece of the microscope she had placed the specimen in to see the results. By this point, only a small amount of the black substance remained at all and that was disappearing quickly. Shizune watched as the odd green colored liquid that was the antidote inched down towards the black substance at the bottom of the test tube.

Shizune gasped as she witnessed the results. By the time the antidote had reached the disease there was minuscule amount of the black substance left. But regardless of this, the result was immediately evident. As soon as the antidote touched the remaining disease it instantly eliminated it and before Shizune could even blink the black substance was all but gone, replaced by only the normal contents of human blood and the odd green liquid.

This was the best possible result. Not only was this the antidote to this disease they had been fearing may wipe out an entire village, it worked at an alarmingly fast rate and was also relatively easy to create.

Now the only thing left to do was to test the antidote on a living patient and to produce larger quantities. Now that Shizune thought about it though, the latter could prove to be difficult. If the disease had truly spread on the scale that Sakura had said it did, then they would need to create tens of thousands of these antidotes. To create the twenty that Shizune now had it had taken nearly half an hour. Even if she did get every available person with any training in creating medicines it would still take weeks to make enough antidote. And that was assuming they had enough supplies, which they did not. Regardless of how hard it would be to mass produce, Shizune still had to test it. Even if they couldn't make enough for everybody, they could still make as many as they could and try and save as many people as they could.

Shizune rushed to the infirmary, grabbing two syringes and the antidote on the way out. Luckily, the infirmary was very close to where Shizune's lab was and she made the short distance quickly. In the two elderly patients room many nurses still surrounded the beds, tending to the ever growing rashes. When Shizune entered all the nurses and doctors looked up, grim looks on all of their faces. When they saw what she held in her hand, they all immediately vacated the edges of the beds, letting Shizune in, anxious to see what she had prepared.

Once in the room, Shizune didn't waste any time. First she headed for the older women, wiping her arm with an alcohol swab before drawing a small amount of the antidote into one of the needles. Shizune paused for a moment before moving on; if this didn't work then they would be back where they started and chances are there would be nothing they could do about the disease. Shizune had already seen the antidote work in the lab, but it could have some unforeseen consequences on an actual patient; they had found the directions in one of the sounds labs after all.

This wasn't the time to delay though, and with one last moment of hesitation, Shizune slowly inserted the needle into the womens arm, emptying its contents into her blood stream.

Everyone in the room held their breath in anticipation. At first nothing happened. The women did not appear to get any better but her condition was not getting any worse either. But then it happened. The rash stopped spreading and it appeared as if the disease just left her body all at once.

Excited murmurs erupted throughout the room. Shizune had actually found out an antidote for this horrible disease!

Seeing the results, Shizune didn't waste any time. She injected the antidote into the elder man and then turned her attention to everyone else in the room.

"I want blood tests of these two patients to ensure the disease is in fact done and to verify that everything is normal," Shizune ordered, "And I want everyone that has any knowledge of medicine creation to meet me down in the lab, we have to mass produce this antidote as quickly as possible."

Instantly everyone in the room complied with Shizune's requests and the whole wing of the hospital started buzzing with movement and excitement. Shizune breathed a deep sigh of relief; the antidote had actually worked. She needed to get back to work creating the antidote now, but there was one thing left that she had to do before that.

Shizune rushed to the front of the hospital and grabbed the first Konoha shinobi she could find.

"I have an important mission for you," Shizune said, grabbing a young boy who couldn't be more then a genin.

"Really? What is it?" The boy asked excitedly; at the mention of a mission, an important one no less, whatever reason the boy had for being in the hospital erased itself from his mind.

Shizune pulled two extra syringes from her robe that she had already filled with antidote and handed them to the young boy. "I need you to bring these to Ino and Sakura, they are in a village to the north of here. It is very important that you get these to them as quickly as possible, their life depends on it."

"Oh, so this is like an A rank mission then right!" The boy cried excitedly, taking the syringes from Shizune, looking the over.

"Yeah, sure, just go as quickly as you can, get teammates if you need but you must leave immediately, do you understand?"

"Yeah, I understand, I'll leave right now!"

"Good, now get going," Shizune ordered. She watched to make sure the young boy left before heading back to her lab to get back to work. It most likely would have been more ideal to get an ANBU member to do this, but Shizune didn't have time to hunt one down and she had seen that boy do many missions and for the most part he seemed competent so she hoped everything would be fine. She just hoped that he made it to Ino in time.

xx

Trees turned to unrecognizable brown and green blurs and the wind pounded across his body as Naruto darted through the forest towards his destination. He had only been traveling for a few minutes yet he was nearly three quarters of the way there. It took a lot of chakra to travel at this speed but Naruto didn't have time to think about chakra conservation now; if he slowed down then he would loose Sasuke and Kiba would die.

Gritting his teeth, Naruto forced more chakra to his feet and picked up his pace. At this new faster pace he should be able to make it to where Sasuke was in less then two minutes.

_You won't be able to bring him back and your friends will _die...

"Shut up!" Naruto hollered. "I don't have time for this!"

_With my help you will succeed..._

"I don't need your help, now leave me alone!" Naruto growled. He had to stay calm. Even if it would be difficult in this situation, he couldn't loose control. He had to do this his own way.

All of the thoughts running through Naruto's head temporarily disappeared as he arrived at Sasuke's base. The only thing he could see out of the ordinary was a small mountain sticking out on the edge of the forest and while it didn't exactly have a sign saying 'Sasuke's Base,' Naruto was sure this was where Sasuke and Kiba were.

Naruto approached the mound slowly, examining it. If what Shino and Hinata had reported was true, then the majority of the base would be below ground. So the only thing he had to do was break through this barrier and he would be in. Naruto placed his hand on the wall and felt its density and thickness.

"Is this supposed to keep people out?" Naruto scoffed as a massive amount of wind chakra formed on his hand and released, disintegrating the entire barrier that blocked the entrance.

Naruto walked forward, looking down into the darkness that he had exposed. A downward slanting ramp lead down further into the base and to where Sasuke and Kiba were.

Naruto didn't waste any time and in an instant he disappeared into the dark. Naruto zoomed passed an uncountable amount of identical doors as he went further and further into the base. It didn't take long before Naruto reached where the scroll had been opened. The door looked the same as all the others, a cold gray steel, but Naruto knew this was where Kiba was. Hesitantly, Naruto approached the door and slowly pushed it open.

Immediately as the door cracked even the smallest bit, Naruto knew that this room was right. He didn't have the best sense of smell like Kiba of Kakashi, but even still the acrid stench that perforated from the room almost sent him reeling back. It smelled awful, a mix of blood and vomit, the smell of death.

As the door swung open even further Naruto gasped at what he saw. Sprawled out on the floor, still partly bound to a chair and laying in a pool of his own blood was an unconscious Kiba. He had only a dark shirt on that had been torn almost to shreds and was completely saturated with blood as well as equally tattered black pants.

Despite the awful smell, Naruto rushed into the room, kneeling down at Kiba's side. He rolled Kiba over so he was on his back and untied the last of the restraints, throwing the chair into the corner of the room.

"Dammit Kiba don't die," Naruto muttered, checking for any signs of life. He wished Sakura was here, he didn't know anything about medical ninjutsu and other then applying some bandages there wasn't much he could do.

Naruto bent down and tried to check for any signs of life. Kiba was still breathing, and his heart was still beating but his pulse was very weak and wasn't getting any better. Based on the amount of blood on the ground and the large amount of wounds inflicted over Kiba's body he had to have lost a significant amount of blood and if he lost much more he would surely die.

Naruto reached into his pouch and pulled out some bandages and proceeded to apply them to some of the me serious injuries. Oddly, all of the wounds seemed to have stopped bleeding and some had already started to scab. Even still, if Kiba didn't get any medical attention soon he would surely die.

Naruto gritted his teeth. If he didn't do something, Kiba would be dead within twenty minutes. The only option that could save Kiba's life right now would be to bring him back to Konoha. If he had to carry Kiba it would take at least ten or fifteen minutes to get back to Konoha and then another few to get back to here. By that time Sasuke would be gone. Sasuke was getting further away by the minute, if Naruto left now he could catch up in a few minutes but by the time he finished there Kiba would be dead.

So what the hell could he do? If Naruto saved Kiba then Sasuke would get away, possibly for good this time. If he went after Sasuke then Kiba would die for sure. If he called for a medic squad they wouldn't arrive in time. Even if he summoned a frog to carry Kiba back chances are it wouldn't make it fast enough and the jolting the ride would cause Kiba would inevitably kill him. He could use a kage bunshin, but if he used that technique his power in each clone would be divided in half. He had already used a significant amount of chakra to reach here, half of that amount per clone wouldn't be enough to deal with Sasuke and wouldn't leave enough chakra to make it back to Konoha in time.

"Dammit, what the hell should I do," Naruto cursed, slamming his hand into the ground, causing blood to splatter everywhere.

Kiba's pulse was getting weaker by the moment and if he didn't act now he would surely die. On the other hand, Sasuke was getting away, if he let him go much further he would loose him. It had been Kiba's mission to find Sasuke, could Naruto really let him die so that he could get Sasuke back? Either way, he needed to move now, he just had decided what route to take first.

xx

The young boy breathed heavily as he continued to jump from tree to tree through the forest. He had been running as fast as he possibly could, faster then he had ever remembered running, for many hours and the constant exertion was starting to get to him. Even though he was almost out of breath and energy he kept moving. This was the first really important mission he had been on and he wasn't about to mess it up; people were depending on him!

Once the boy had left the hospital he had safely tucked both of the syringes into his weapons pouch and headed off. He didn't bother to find any of his other teammates, they would just slow him down. Plus, he couldn't rub it into their faces that he went on an A rank solo mission. It had also been the reason he had been in the hospital, to visit his teammate who had been injured during training. He would have to thank them later, if it wasn't for them being injured he wouldn't have gotten this mission.

Just as the boy felt he couldn't go any further the village finally came into view. He had been to this particular village a few times on missions before but this time it looked completely differently. The normally bustlingly town streets were no shockingly empty and surrounding the town were many Konoha shinobi's. Whatever had happened in this village must have been bad. Even if the village was giving him the creeps he couldn't stop here, he had to complete this mission.

The boy got into the village easy enough. The guards at first were hesitant but when he told them why he was there they anxiously let him in. One of the guards lead him to the hospital where the boy went in to search for Sakura, who he was supposed to deliver the syringes to.

In the waiting room sat a scarce number of people, most frightened and some even crying. The boy tried to avoid eye contact with them, as he was worried he'd start getting all emotional if he saw them cry at him. Besides the few townspeople in the waiting room the only other person was a young nurse who seemed completely exhausted and was covered with blood. She was trying to comfort a very emotional young women, although everything she said just seemed to make the women cry harder as she kept whimpering something about her son.

The young boy approached the nurse and cleared his throat trying to get her attention. The nurse turned to him, a grim look on her face. She had obviously been dealing with grieving people all day and was getting fed up with it.

"Can I help you?" the nurse asked.

"I was sent on a mission from Konoha to bring some medicine to Sakura. Do you know where she is by chance?" The young boy asked, taking out the syringes to show that he was indeed telling the truth.

Several heads in the room perked up at the site of the medicine. The nurse nodded her head and motioned for one of the hospitals wings. "She's down there."

The young boy nodded and thanked the nurse before heading down the hall. Behind him he heard several of the townspeople murmuring about what they had just seen but payed no attention. It didn't take long to make it to where Sakura was and when he saw what surrounded her he had to cover his mouth to stop himself from vomiting.

Around Sakura in cots spread around the entire room lay many sick and dieing people. He had been a ninja for a while and seen some death, but nothing like this. Most of the people seemed to have their flesh peeling from their bones and many of the people had already died, their bodies still sitting on the cots as there was not enough staff to attend to them.

Trying to keep his eyes off of the diseased people, the young boy made a beeline for Sakura, pulling out the syringes as he went. "Miss Sakura, I was ordered to bring these to you," The young boy said as he approached Sakura without even bothering to get her attention.

Sakura turned at the mention of the name and gasped when she saw what he had in his hand. Could these possibly be what she thought they were? She had tried painstakingly hard to create an antidote for this disease, had the people in Konoha really been able to make one before her?

"Thank you!" Sakura cried, grabbing the syringes from the boys hand before running out of the room.

"Don't you want to use them?" The boy asked as Sakura left. There were plenty of sick people here, surely a few of them could use whatever was in those syringes. When his question was met with no response the boy frowned and followed Sakura, interested in what this antidote could do.

By the time the boy caught up with Sakura she had made her way to a private room not to far away from where the majority of the bodies were. She had already started preparing one the syringes and was muttering under her breath as she got ready to inject it into the women lying in the bed. This women was slightly better looking then some of the patients in the other room. She still had the strange flesh eating rash on her stomach and chest, but it wasn't as developed quite yet. It seemed like she may get the medicine just in time.

"Ino, don't worry, everything is going to be fine," Sakura murmured as she readied the needle. She really couldn't believe someone had surpassed her and created this antidote, although if it was going to save Ino, then she wasn't going to complain.

Sakura hovered the needle over Ino's arm and held it there for a moment. Was this really an antidote? She found it hard to believe that someone had actually been able to create one. Could this really just be a trap and they were trying to poison Ino? No, there would be no point in poisoning here, the worst that could happen now was that she died, and if she didn't try this antidote she would die anyway.

"What are you waiting for?" The boy asked when Sakura didn't inject the needle. He had made his way all the way to the edge of the bed and was observing anxiously.

Sakura didn't respond as she kept the needle hovering over Ino's arm. Her arm started to shake and she tried to push the needle down lower but couldn't.

"Are you okay Sakura?" The boy asked.

"My son..."

A warm liquid started running down Sakura's arm and onto the floor.

"My son needs this..."

Sakura's arm started to tremble more and more and the syringe dropped from her hand, rolling harmlessly onto the bed.

"Sakura?" Ino whispered, her eyes cracking open as she gained a moment of consciousness.

"Ino, I'm sorry," Sakura gasped as she lifted her hand to her chest to feel the sharp tip of the knife that had been thrust through the center of her chest.

The young boy gasped when he saw what had happened and tried to dodge away but too slowly as the women jerked the knife from Sakura's back and dug it through his forehead protector and deep into his skull. The boy fell back onto the bed limply, his eyes rolling back into his head as blood gushed out from under the dull metal Konoha symbol.

"The devil, Konoha shinobi are the devil..."

Sakura reached for the syringe with a quivering hand but came up short as all her energy escaped from her body and she collapsed forward onto the bed before slipping off and falling back onto the floor.

"My son..." the young women muttered as she grabbed the two syringes from the bed and rushed out of the room.

Sakura gasped and coughed up blood as she watched the womens feet scamper out of the room. She lifted her hand to her chest and tried to mold her chakra but no longer could, not having any energy left. Blood started to pool on the glossy linoleum floor as it freely poured from the massive chest wound the women had inflicted.

"Ino, I'm sorry," Sakura whispered one last time as she coughed another glob of blood before her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed into darkness.

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So what did you think? Hope no one stops reading just because someone died though, there may be others to go eventually as well XD. 


	17. Saved

A/N: sorry this chapter took a little longer to get out. I've been really busy, I have some really big end year tests coming up so I didn't have much time to write. Thank you to everyone that reviewed and keep them coming.

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Chapter 16: Saved 

Blood pooled on the floor as the red liquid gushed from the open wounds in the pink haired ninja's torso and the young boys head. A young woman stood quivering over the two dead bodies for a moment before reaching out to grab the syringe that had fallen lightly onto the bed where a third blonde haired women lay, sick.

Still trembling, scared about what she had just done, the women rummaged through some of the pink haired women's belongings and pulled out yet another syringe. She verified it was the same and looked frantically around here, hoping no one had seen her. When she saw no one around, the women turned and left the room.

In a brisk walk the women headed down the hallway keeping the two syringes she now held tucked away in her sleeve so that no one else could get a glimpse of them. Her jittery and overly anxious movements drew the gazes of the few other people in the hallways as she hobbled her way towards her son.

She couldn't imagine what she looked like right now. She had been up for days on end worrying about her son and overwhelmed with fear of what may happen with this disease. She hadn't bathed for an even longer time and she was sure if this place did not already have the foul stench of death hanging over it she would get more then a few looks because of the rank smell emanating from her body.

Now was not the time to think about her appearance though. She would do anything to save her son, and while she might regret what she had just done, now was not the time to reflect. With the answer in her sleeve, the women headed into the room that was now overflowing with infected people weaving around the many cots and sick people until she finally made it to her son.

Her son lay weak and sweating in a cot towards the center of the room. He was young, only six years old. He had shown symptoms no more then a day ago and the rash had overtaken much of his chest and had spread to his arms. He had a bad fever and a cold sweat had permeated from his entire body, soaking his cloths and dampening his messing black hair. Without treatment, he wouldn't last more then another day. His mom just hoped that the damage done so far would be reversible.

"It's okay, everything is going to be okay," The women purred, wiping away some of the sweat from her sons forehead. Around her, the few nurses and doctors that remained untouched looked at her strangely for a moment, but they were too overwhelmed with patients to pay her much mind.

As inconspicuous as possible the women pulled one of the syringes from her sleeve, making sure not to let anyone catch site of the needle. She was not a doctor or a nurse and she wasn't quite sure how to use the syringe, but it couldn't be too hard. Crouching down low over her son she pulled the cap off of the needle end and examined the liquid inside. There wasn't much, she just hoped it was enough.

Holding up her sons arm, the women looked for a vein. The arm was covered with the rash by now and some of the skin was starting to peel off. It was painful to see her son like this, but she would suffer through it if this would save his life.

"Please work," The young women whispered as she stuck the needle in her young sons arm, pushing the plunger down.

For a tense moment nothing happened. The young women held her breath, holding the needle in the young boys arm, pushing the plunger down even harder to make sure every last drop of the liquid made it into his bloodstream. The young boy remained motionless, still in a cold sweat, the rash slowly spreading over his body.

And then it stopped. The rash stopped spreading; it did not go away, but it was not getting worse. The boy's temperature started to drop slowly. He groaned quietly; his eyes cracked open slightly for a moment then shut again, not having enough energy yet.

"Mom?"

The women gasped, elated to hear her sons voice once again. She pulled the needle from his arm and tossed it to the side. She pulled the blankets over him and wrapped them around his body, holding him tightly to her.

"It's alright," She murmured, trying to sooth her son.

"What's happening?" The young boy asked, scarred by his unfamiliar surroundings. The last thing he had remembered he had been walking down the street back from school and the next thing he knew he was here, in the hospital, surrounded by hundreds of sick people; his whole body aching, feeling like his skin was about to fall off his body.

"Don't talk, everything is going to be alright," the mother whispered as she picked her son up, rocking him in her arms. As discreetly as possible, she held her son in her arms and started to walk out of the room. Some of the nurses noticed but still had their hands to full to care too much about one woman was doing.

"What are you doing?"

The young women gasped, turning to face the nurse that had been trying to console her in the waiting room.

"N-nothing," the women stammered. "I'm taking my son home; you aren't doing anything for him here."

"You can't do that," The nurse replied calmly. "There are orders to keep all infected here to control the spread of the disease."

"Mom, what's happening?" The young boy whispered, squirming in his mom's strong hold.

"Is he awake?" The nurse asked surprised. Very few of the patients that had the disease had been able to wake up, let alone speak.

"He's just talking in his sleep," the mother assured, trying to walk past the nurse.

The nurse stepped in her way, still interested in the young boy. "Is he cured?"

"N-no," the women stammered. If everyone found out that she had stolen the cure from the Konoha medics then they would find out she had killed them and there would be a panic.

"Mom, I'm feeling a lot better now, you can put me down," the young boy said, more strength returning to him now. He had no idea what the nurse meant about being cured, as far as he knew he just had a bad fever.

"He is cured isn't he?"

"N-no, now just let me go, I want to get my son home," The women tried to push passed the nurse again but was stopped.

"Where did you get the antidote?" The nurse asked manically, trying to get a better view of the child to see if he really was cured. "No one has told us about an antidote."

"There is none," The mother assured.

"What's going on?" a doctor asked as he came over to check what the commotion was about.

"She has a cure!" the nurse exclaimed excitedly.

"Where did she get it?" the doctor asked, interested now.

"There is no cure!" The women yelled. She couldn't get caught now. What would happen to her son and to her if she got caught?

More people had gathered around the scene now, having heard screams of a cure and antidotes. The women stayed in the center. All her escape roots had been blocked now. It was only a matter of time before someone stumbled upon the bodies that were in the room down the hall. Maybe if she just told them where she had gotten the antidote they would leave her alone long enough for her to get away.

"Where did you get the cure?" many people asked eagerly, swarming around the now panicked mom.

The young mother now had tears running down her face. She was surrounded. Her son squirmed in her arms as he was now worried as well. He still did not know what was going on and why so many people seemed to insist that his mother had some type of cure.

"Where did you get the cure?"

"Please go away…" the mother whispered.

"Where is the antidote?"

"Mom, what's going on?"

"Tell us now!"

The mother had now fallen down onto her knees, her son still held loosely in her arms. "Please…"

"Tell us!"

The mother was now sobbing. She couldn't take this anymore. "I-I got the antidote from Konoha."

xx

Shizune ran frantically through the hospital, trying to get a hundred things done at once. She had gathered every capable medic and doctor that was left in the village and had gone to work trying to mass produce the antidote. She ordered around many of the people, trying to make the process as effective as possible. Even though creating the solution was easy for her, for many of the lesser talented medics it was proving to be quite difficult and she often had to assist them to make sure that the antidote came out right. It was vital not to waste any material, as they needed to make as much of the antidote as possible.

So far production was going well enough. They had been able to make several hundred antidotes so far, but it was still far from enough. Word had gotten out to a few people in the village about the disease and that there was now an antidote, but Shizune wanted to keep things as quite as possible. If everyone in the village knew then there could be a panic. If word got out of the village it would be even worse.

Top priority for her right now was to provide the antidote to the Konoha ninjas. It would take about another two hours to create enough antidotes for everyone in Konoha if they continued at the current rate and didn't run out of materials. Shizune had already been administering the antidote to a few of the Konoha ninjas and there was now a small line growing in the hospital.

On top of all this they still had to deal with the source of the disease. According to the reports the infection spread through one of the fire countries main rivers that was its main source of water. The flow had been stopped at a purifying plant upstream from Konoha but the infected water had still spread throughout the entire fire country before they had stopped it. So now they had to put enough antidotes in the water to destroy the source of the virus or else much of the fire country could be in serious trouble from a lack of water.

And even with all this they still needed to supply enough antidotes for all the villages in the fire country that had already been infected. In many villages it had already become a full blown pandemic; they would have to be first priority. Hopefully by this time Sakura and Ino had received antidotes so they would be fine, but if the people in that village found out there was an antidote it could be trouble for Konoha.

Shizune sighed; this whole situation was proving to be very difficult. On top of everything that was going on, Naruto hadn't even returned yet. He had disappeared from his office in a flash without even a mention of where he was going and he hadn't returned since. Shizune was worried what he was doing, it would cause immense trouble for the village if another Hokage were to die such a short time after Tsunade's passing.

Whatever Naruto was up to, she had no time to worry about it now. She just had to trust he would be okay. He was strong, there was a reason that he had been made the Hokage, so she refused to believe he would be killed easily.

The real problem she had to worry about now was supplies. It wouldn't be long before they started to deplete their resources to make this antidote. She had already sent several squads to retrieve more material but if they had to make the antidote for the entire fire country they may never be able to gather enough resources.

"Miss Shizune."

Shizune turned to face one of the young doctors that were working in the hospital. "What is it?"

"Word has started to spread more throughout the village about the disease and the antidote," the doctor started, "Many people are gathering around the entrance, its starting to get messy."

Shizune sighed. She knew this was going to happen. Why couldn't people just keep their mouths shut? It would be much easier to administer the antidote to everyone in the village if they didn't tear apart the hospital trying to get it. "Thank you for the information, I'll take care of it."

The doctor nodded and ran back off to get back to work. Shizune placed the vial of antidote she was currently working on and headed down to the entrance of the Hospital. It would be trouble if things got too out of hand.

As Shizune made it down the entrance of the hospital she found chaos. The waiting room had completely filled with people, the nurses struggling to fend off the hordes from breaking into the main halls. Many more people were outside the front doors, unable to squeeze in to the already packed room.

Again, Shizune sighed deeply. Why did the people of Konoha have to be such idiots at times? The room was incredibly noisy and it was hard to hear herself even think. She quickly made her way to some of the nurses that were holding back the crowds and instructed them to only allow people that were showing symptoms and further. Everyone else should wait outside in an orderly line to facilitate the process.

And then suddenly, the whole room went quite. A few people whispered to each other but for the most part everyone stopped talking at once. Slowly the crowd started to part as someone made their way through it towards Shizune.

Shizune gasped when she saw what it was. Naruto walked slowly towards her, weaving his way through the still dense crowd. He was breathing deeply, looking exhausted. In his arms he held the limp body of Kiba; the one who had been captured by Sasuke.

Naruto approached Shizune, taking a moment to catch his breath before speaking. "You have to help him." Was all he could say as he held out the young mans body that he held in his arms.

Shizune nodded and took Kiba from Naruto's arms. Kiba had been thoroughly beat up. And Shizune would be surprised if he was even alive based on the wounds he had had inflicted. His body was horribly mutilated, horrible gash's ran all over his arms and chest and many bruises adorned the rest of his body. And to Shizune's surprise he was still breathing: albeit very weakly.

Shizune didn't waste any time. She quickly dropped his body onto a stretcher and with the held of some nurses, wheeled his body to an operating room. They didn't have any time to loose. The young man was pale, he had undoubtedly lost a ton of blood and if they didn't transplant some into him soon he would be at serious risk.

Shizune ordered some of the nurses to get several pints of blood and as they rushed off Shizune brought Kiba into an operating room, lifting him onto the operating table before placing an iv and sensors into his arm. Shizune bit her lip as she saw Kiba's read outs. His heart beat was weak and getting weaker by the minute and his blood pressure was dangerously low. As the nurses arrived back with the blood Shizune quickly got another needle to his arm and started resupplying his blood supply.

As Shizune continued to work inside the room, Naruto waited outside. He had followed Shizune to the operating room and watched her bring Kiba inside. There was nothing he could do now. He had brought Kiba back as quick as he could; that was the only thing he could do to try and save him.

Naruto collapsed on a bench outside of the OR: he was exhausted and still breathing heavily. Even though he had a massive chakra reservoir he had used up almost all if it to make the trip to the sound country and back at such a high speed. In the end he had had to let Sasuke go. He couldn't just let Kiba die there in that horrible place so that he could chase after someone that in all likelihood would get away.

Naruto sighed deeply. His plan had failed. While parts of it were a success he had hoped it wouldn't end up this way. In the end he had been too anxious and he hadn't thought through everything as well as he should have. Now Kiba was on the verge of death and Sasuke had gotten away.

"Where is he?!"

Naruto jumped, startled by the sudden outburst. Coming down the hall he saw Tsume, Kiba's mom, closely followed by Hana, Kiba's sister as well as Shino and Hinata, Kiba's teammates. Pacing anxiously behind all of them was Akamaru, who whimpered sporadically; never take his eyes of the operating room doors.

"H-he's in the operating room, Shizune is working on him right now." Naruto responded quietly. Even though he was now Hokage and technically all of their superiors, he knew the Inuzuka could be rather disrespectful and he hoped he didn't have to deal with Kiba's mother.

"Is he still alive?" Hana asked, far more calmly then her mother's previous screams.

"Y-yeah. Well at least he was when I got him here."

Everyone in the hallway remained quite now. Shino sat down with Hinata on the bench next to Naruto and Hana and Tsume sat on the bench on the opposite side of the hall. The only sound that could be heard echoing in the small hall was the clanking of Akamaru's claws as he continued to pace.

Hinata played with her fingers nervously as she waited for the news. She was worried about Kiba, and while it was encouraging to see him at least get back to Konoha still breathing, if he had to be in the operating room this long then there could be something wrong. It was also a bit unnerving to be sitting so close to Naruto. She was just inches from him right now and it was hard to keep herself from blushing. She watched as the blond haired man continued to breathe heavily, shifting uncomfortably from time to time.

They waited like this for what seemed like forever. No one spoke, most of them just starred at the ground, overwhelmed with worry. Hana tried to calm down Akamaru, but to no avail, as the enormous dog continued to pace. And then suddenly the in use light clicked off and everyone held their breath as they waited for the door to open.

The tense moment was broken as in a puff of smoke an ANBU member appeared in front of Naruto. "We've been looking all over for you," The masked man said.

"W-what is it?" Naruto asked, disoriented by the man's sudden appearing.

Everyone else in the hall was disoriented as Naruto. They were all eager to hear what had happened to Kiba, but the sudden appearance of the ANBU member had distracted them. The only one that did not turn to face the ANBU member was Akamaru, who now sat completely still starring intently at the door, waiting for any movement from it.

"Well," the ANBU men started, sensing that he was not completely welcome at the moment. "At the gates, there are several hundred, maybe thousands of people from other villages and they are all demanding an antidote."

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So, like I said before I have many big tests coming up in the next two weeks so I'm sorry in advance if I don't update as often. Although after these next two weeks I am going to have tons of free time and I'll try to update more often then. So review and I'll be your best friend! XD  



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